Was DH being unreasonable?

[smileygrapefruit]

DH just walked to the shop for a few bits, got to the check out and said "Morning love, crazy weather out there!" She refused to serve him because he'd called her love. For context, we're in Yorkshire where every one calls every one love, DH calls his male friends love. This will probably divide opinion on MN but I'm wondering if it served him right or whether the lady should have served him? He had to walk as we can't get the car out due to the snow and the next shop is going to be a good 40 min walk each way!

"I’ve worked for 9 years with Yorkshire customers in a professional role and I hear love, hun, my dear, darling, pet, chick, sweetheart, sometimes gorgeous every day grin"

But are you a man and are they men?

For full disclosure I HATE being called love, dear, sweetie, babe or any other term along that line Inc by my DP however I work for NHS in South but fully accept 99% of the time it is meant with sincerity and any offense would be taken with pure embarrassment

Christ allfuckingmighty you'd think by the fiftybillionth alert from MNHQ about laying off with the cocksucking troll-hunting that the thickos that persist in doing it would have really got the message by now . Do you reckon those poor sods at HQ have a template or do they have to find an original way of telling the dense fucking shitflutes each time to just bloody well report????

I find 'love' annoying, perhaps in part because one of the guys in our social gang when I was in my 20s used to do it deliberately to annoy.
But I see it as a cultural/time thing. The older guys who were dads/grandads used to say it and I thought nothing of it. In a small community, it's a bit like in Spain where you might be called guapo/guapa. I personally would find her attitude far more offensive than being called 'love'.

Customers in their local shops using colloquial terms, how very dare they offend the professionally offended! Context my arse. This man was using the friendly greeting that is used up and down Yorkshire, daily. You can suck the joy out of your own life, leave the rest of us to our unpoliced speech BertrandRussell.

DP (who is definitely a man) gets called my love by women, as do I (definitely a woman).

Blokes call each other "mate", or if very familiar you get the occasional "babber" or "me babs". I am also sometimes babber.

In a professional setting it wouldn't be OK - I wouldn't expect to be called "my love" in a business meeting, nor has this ever happened. But during a simple transaction, where my status is irrelevant, it doesn't matter at all.

It really is about context - and regional differences are part of that.

She was BU!! I hate being called "love" but certainly wouldn't refuse to serve anyone. (Lancashire here!!)

I'm also in Yorkshire (west)and it's the most commonest greeting used by both sexes and all age ranges. The men in my local pub called each other love! The world is going bloody bonkers! All the crap and negativity going on in the world I really struggle how someone could get wound up my a friendly greeting, it can't be the first time she had been called love buy a customer, she must be losing the shop money!

My partner has just informed me I use the phrase "thanks lovely" a lot.

Some people need to calm down 😂 did she really feel that offended by that?
Oh my lord! I was a barmaid in my student years and the things some customers called me would have her reaching for the pepper spray! She won't last in the job if she treats customers in that manner. It's laughable. 😊

The Guardian comments mods have a policy of deleting all subsequent comments that refer back to a poster's originally deleted comment, iyswim. I always thought that was overkill until I read the disgusting comment up-page that used the "n" word. Absolutely fucking shocking. It would probably be best if ALL comments referring back to that awful piece of gutter-trashery masquerading as opinion (including mine) could be wiped off this page...and preferably the original commenter blocked. Absolutely bloody appalling.

Trouble is, there's two large bandwaggons going around, one that's worth getting on i.e. to be against real inequality and mistreatment of women ( or men) and one that you should let drive past. This is the one that shows offence at the term 'love' and turns it into something it isn't. She's turning your DH pleasant friendly comment into something nasty. Such people need to get a grip and save their offence for something that's really worth getting offended about, as they're doing the rest of woman (human) kind no favours.

Just putting in a word for Londoners. It's not just Northerners who are friendly and use casual endearments to all and sundry. I think it's probably a class thing. Industrial areas, like NE, SE London, do it all the time. Also common among people who work for a living on the land, as opposed to owning large chunks of it.

In SELondon, girl is affectionate and used for all ages. Woman is brusque, borderline insulting. Old woman is rude, old girl is friendly and old lady is how I was taught to refer to an elderly female.

Bert - I agree that context is everything - and tone of voice. But I question your experience of the 'real world'. I think you have now set your default to see power and put-down in even innocent social encounters. Pulling people up for using the 'wrong' - in your world view - terminology is the very worst way to go about winning friends and influencing people.

In the nicest possible way, get a grip, girl.

Ski40 yes but just because you don't mind pet names doesn't mean everyone else does. I also worked behind a bar and hate being called by any pet name it feels belittling.

Silly cow. The worlds gone mad. Poor DH

ThymeOut I agree with you about Londoners being more friendly than commonly recognised. Was a little lost at Liverpool Street Station recently, asked the young guy at the information desk and he said he was going on a fag break so would take me. We had a lovely chat en route to my hotel.

Northeners are lovely, warm people. Shop keeper is probably from down South!! 🤓

@Feelings oh yes I did mind, I was very young and sometimes customers could be very intimidating. What I meant is that love is actually nice compared to those names! I wouldn't have minded that! But I still had to serve everyone with a smile whether I liked it or not😮. Xx

He even gave me a hug as we parted. Made my day.

I don't like the way men talk down to women and place them in an inferior, patronising position by calling them 'love'. When I was given a wrongly priced tickets by a bus-driver, he tried to show I was an idiot by calling me love, trying to make me look like someone who was fussing about nothing.

There was a recent television programme showing a teacher treating little girls as inferior, calling them 'love' and boys 'mate'. The teacher was himself surprised when he saw this played back and he realised he was treating the little girls very differently.

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/need-some-help-with-that-love-how-to-respond-to-patronising-comm/

So he should have apologised. These 'common' terms are constantly used to berate, and under-respect women.

Huh? I'm from east anglia but live in Yorkshire. I detest being called love (DH never uses that term with me as it really does get my goat) BUT I get that it's done here and even though it's like nails down a chalkboard to me I'd never, ever let it be known. When in Rome.......

Lol I haven't lived in the UK for 10 years and I still call everyone in my country of residence love, pet and doll. No one ever takes offence. It is a lovely cultural tradition and long may it continue.

It matters because language is important

It is important, which is why you should understand the subtleties of language more and be a lot less literal

Men use words like love to patronise and belittle women- we've all experienced "the mechanic's love". It's like men calling adult women girls

See this is where you have gone wrong. Absolutely men CAN and DO use words like that in that way. But also people use the exact same words in very different ways. Like how the OP is talking about!
Words do not mean the exact same thing all the time. They vary enormously based on situation, dialect, intent, lots more. You've assumed its being used in one way and you are quite wrong.

Words are very important, as you say. Far too important for you to decide they only mean what you say and to berate everyone else for understanding that you have got it wring.

Theft - v glad to hear you had such a positive experience!

urkidding I, personally, don't use mate. Don't know why. But, as I said upthread, my roofer calls me mate, 'Cheers, mate', so perhaps it's becoming unisex, like guys. I call all children, not just my own, love or darling, regardless of gender. What do you think he should have called the girls/boys?

Bus drivers, m or f, call me love all the time, down here. (London) It was nothing to do with the row over the tickets and belittling you as a woman. He'd have called a man mate. Madam would have meant he was gearing himself up to be a jobsworth, ime.

These 'common' terms are constantly used to berate, and under-respect women.

You don't get to tell other cultures to obey you. It's patronising in the extreme to tell working class northerners that they don't realise they are being berated and under-respected and that they should change how they speak to sound more middle class. It's bizarre that you see the word love as a huge problem when men use it to women, but not the (equally common) other way around.

I'm in the East Midlands and being called duck or love is pretty standard here. It's friendly and kindly affectionate rather than creepy to me, I like it.

I'm not over keen on being called mate but I wouldn't kick off over it