Quiz: Chairman or chairwoman?

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:47 AM -0500 11/3/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Let's simply spread the use of the English equivalent of Latin _vir_,
>still alive only in "werewolf,"

there's always wergild...

>as the opposite of "woman," leaving
>"man" to mean "human being," as "homo" originally meant in Latin.
>
>-Wilson

Nice thought, but a friendly amendment:

  (i) Since _wer-_ is pretty much extinct, we might as well go with
the Latin cognate _vir_, still alive in virile, virtue, virago,
triumvirate, etc.
(ii) On the model of _wi:f-man_, which has undergone the usual
ease-of-articulation reductions to arrive at _woman_, I propose that
we get those changes out of the way ahead of time, leaving us with:
  _vir_ + _man_ > virman, pl. _virmen_.

LH


>
>On 11/2/06, Troy <foxfoot at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Troy <foxfoot at YAHOO.COM>
>>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 <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>>
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail
>>>  header -----------------------
>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society
>>>  <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter
>>>  <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>>  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" <Berson at ATT.NET> 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
>>>
>>>
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>
>
>--
>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
>
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