Quote Originally Posted by Culfinrandir View Post
In America I know many lawyers still use Esquire as an honourific whereas it has pretty much died out in the UK. Possibly it remains in the USA due to a large Italian diaspora.
Been a while, but I also seem to recall that many lawyers and the like use Esquire because unlike Doctor or certain acronyms, Esquire doesn't have any governing laws regarding it's use. It makes you sound special and significant, but anyone can use it.

But to the topic of the thread, the feminine use of the title "Sir" in modern society, when not used in reference to a knighthood, is a pointed ungendering of the person. You refer to a female superior as "Sir" rather than "Ma'am" because you are giving due respect to their position, rather than the person themselves. The same may or may not apply to female knights in this setting ((Which is far from a sexually equal setting, but the point may be that they give women who fight the masculine title because they wish to ignore considerations of gender in their active fighting force. Our modern Sirs and Dames aren't necessarily expected to fight, and when they were, we weren't expecting women to fight, correct?))