Glad to see the fun police are still out in force here.

My guess would be the "sir" is what triggers. It reads very weird, has a bad link to the stereotypes who would use the word today, and the assuming of gender.

The guidelines ask this:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

FWIW I've also seen the topic come up on the other side, when commenters have used non-traditional pronouns.

"Assume good faith" seems reasonable here, given that the root commenter was merely being very enthusiastic with their praise.

I could have gone with Madam Tim but I worried it would be too formal.

Listen, I have been on this site from the beginning and I appreciate the generally no bullshit tone. I left reddit back when it became clear that HN was the clear successor of the reddit I used to know but killjoy bullshit like parsing "sir" is not what I'm here for either.

"TimTheTinker", I think it's a fair assumption.

if useless quips are fun then maybe the appropriate venue is elsewhere?

Pointless quips add something else we have to scroll past to learn anything or find something interesting. The goal is more wheat not more chaff.

"this was interesting" can be accomplished by upvoting.

I think HN should be able to eschew lame attempts at Reddit-style humour whilst still welcoming good-natured enthusiastic praise!

Was it pointless? Who doesn't like to hear something pleasant said about, oh, I don't know 25 years of knowing a fun word and getting to use it in context. If praise for that bugs you then you need to find some joy in your life, because I can assure you you're wasting your time right now.