Honorifics

I saw these two posts on BlueSky a couple of days ago:

Guy at the pyramids called after me “sir!” No response “maam!” No response, after a few seconds he tries again “cousin!” I think we’ve cracked it. There is a gender neutral honorific.
Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social

We really do need a gender-neutral honorific. I'm pretty good with pronouns, but I grew up in the South, and "Thank you, ma'am," "Thank you, sir" just flow on out of my mouth with no input from the brain.
 Fiddler Meg

Which was interesting enough, but the thing I came away thinking was, Wow, English has a category of words called "honorifics," and I recognize that term. When did I learn that word and why don't I remember learning it? And then, What a weird word it is. Sure, the "honor" part is clear, but "ific"? It sounds like something out of a super hero comic book.

I am not surprised to learn that many (maybe most) other languages also have honorifics. We are status-oriented bunch of homo sapiens who need to know who belongs where. There's even a name for anti-honorific first-person usages, which are called humilific. One example is the phrase "this unworthy person." 

As I suspected, there are some people who are not into honorifics, favoring egalitarianism in speech. Examples given on the Wikipedia page are Quakers, some socialists, and people during the French Revolution. 

Calling a person you don't know "cousin" seems to be in that vein, perhaps unwittingly.