I heard a delivery driver said to a foreign student, "Boss, I'm leaving it at your door." The student asked me. "But I don't have a company?" I had just assumed it was simply an honorific way of addressing someone. But when I tried to explain it to the student, I realized I didn't know the reason either. ## Originally, the Highest Person in a Company In Chinese characters, 사장 means "the elder of a company." Only the person who led a company was called 사장님. But as small shops and companies grew in number, shop owners also came to be called 사장님. After all, the owner is the head of that shop. ## Words of respect wear out too Just as prices of goods rise, honorific words lose their power when they become common. Since everyone gets called '사장님', the weight it originally carried has become lighter. Still, in Korean it's hard to address an adult you don't know in a way that lowers them. So people chose to address them one step higher. The "사장님" a student hears is closer to a greeting that says, "I respect you." ## How to use it When a strange older man calls you "사장님", you can just accept it with a smile; there's no reason to be offended. But at work, it's different. If someone has a job title, you should address them correctly, like "Manager Kim." If you don't know their title, saying "OO-nim" is generally safe. Now, whenever I hear this phrase, I think about something. I think, "So these honorifics, whose value has gone up, are carrying the desire to respect one another."