Tempodivalse:

Wow. Completely different here. Lady is a respectful term. I think I might get in trouble in your country just trying to be nice.

Thanks for the tip.

I think it depends somewhat on the context. Where I live, "lady" simply isn't used much; you normally say "woman" if talking in the third person, or "ma'am" if second-person vocative.

In some circles it seems to be considered mildly sexist - though I'm not sure why exactly, given that the male equivalent "gentleman" has no negative connotation by default.

I think context will clear up the intention most of the time, and avoid awkward situations.

There ya go. All good reasons to use the Eo words in Eo as they are in Eo and avoid applying our native connotations of similar words. We translate meaning and not words. My crowd might use this or that label in a positive way, but I cannot account for the zeitgeist of every culture on earth and I have to be careful in translating; I have to be careful not to load Eo (and therefor international) words with local weight.

K. Had me input. I'm out before the fight starts.

erinja:

jagr2808:To be honest I can't remember callong anyone by any of the titles herr/fru/frøken (mr/mrs/ms) but maybe its just less common in norway. I call people by their first name or just their last name.

What are people called in public when you don't know them? For example, you don't know a person and you are trying to get their attention. In Esperanto one might shout "Sinjoro!". In English, it would be "sir!" or "ma'am", so we use different words entirely than the titles.

One could do what the Quakers do and say the full name; in the absence of that knowledge would be "brother" or "sister" since we are all God's children or else "Friend" unless they have shown themselves to be otherwise.

erinja:If you met a very high ranking person and you wanted to speak to them with respect, how would they be called?

See above.