Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?

[Jonathan Lighter]

But that would make "werewolf" sexist. Or is it already ?

  Stop me if you've heard this.  Way back in 1974, when pronominal sexism was just becoming a popular issue, I started asking my freshman (better: "freshmen"; best: "freshperson") students whether they personally felt that "he" was a pronoun that excluded or slighted women and girls (correctly "young women"). None of the so-called "boys" (correctly "young men") thought it did, and only two of the so-called "girls."  Both "girls" said - revealingly - that they'd never thought about it, never felt slighted, until female English teachers had told them to feel that way.

  In '77 or '78 I quit asking the question, because the unanimous response - male and female - by then was that, yes, "he" was insufferably sexist.

  Meanwhile, singular "they" is vilified as being plural.


  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's simply spread the use of the English equivalent of Latin _vir_,
still alive only in "werewolf," as the opposite of "woman," leaving
"man" to mean "human being," as "homo" originally meant in Latin.

-Wilson

On 11/2/06, Troy wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Troy
> Subject: Re: Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well, as an intern teacher of "first-year composition"
> - I'd say that the "_man" makes "Chairman" non-gender
> neutral for the same reason I can't teach "freshman
> composition" in today's cultural climate.
>
> ...and to be honest - I think there's something to it.
> Of course there is always the "Chairperson" option
> which while decidedly clunky, at least avoids complete
> dehumanization / objectification of the role.
>
>
> --- Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> > header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> >
> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> >
> > Subject: Re: Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > How do we know that "chairman" is gender-specific ?
> > If it is, hasn't it become so only since the
> > introduction of "chairwoman" ?
> >
> > JL
> >
> > "Joel S. Berson" wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> > header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> > Subject: Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 11/2/2006 04:06 PM, Page Stephens wrote:
> > >What do you call an actress these days, a woman
> > actor or simply an actor?
> > >
> > >As far as I can tell the use of a word which
> > denotes the sex of a person is
> > >going out of style and therefore the use of gender
> > specific words denoting
> > >the sex of the person is disappearing..
> > >...
> > >The men got there first ...
> >
> > A short quiz (do NOT consult your local OED, or
> > other historical dictionary).
> >
> > Which came first, chairman or chairwoman?
> >
> > By how many decades?
> >
> > How many centuries later did chair arrive? (For the
> > occupier, not
> > the place he sat.)
> >
> > Which came first, chairwoman or chair?
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society -
> > http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Get your email and see which of your friends are
> > online - Right on the new Yahoo.com
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society -
> > http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Get your email and see which of your friends are online - Right on the New Yahoo.com
> (http://www.yahoo.com/preview)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
 Check out the New Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org