"chairman" gets neutered

[Ry Rivard]

Newspaper writer here. Preferred style for our paper (relatively small, American) is "chair(wo)man". But I do note the occasional  indiscriminate use by those I cover of "chairman" toward females (but never "chairwoman" of males). A curmudgeon about the building used to say of "chair": "People are not chairs."

--
Ry Rivard
twitter.com/ryrivard | 304.389.9982

On Aug 7, 2011, at 5:44 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "chairman" gets neutered
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 9:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In my day, or so it seems to me, chairpersons were at least as likely to be
>> "chairmen" as "chairs," regardless of sex.
>>
>> Or do I mean "gender"?
>>
>
> I'm in complete agreement with Jon. However, I realize that our
> opinions on these matters have very likely aged out of relevance.
>
> But, don't get biggety, young pepper-chests! Regardless of your
> current youthful relevance, you, too, have irrelevance in your futures
> and you'll be just as annoyed. My grandparents went to their graves
> pretending that the "bicycle," as this form of velocipede was known in
> my youth, was properly referred to only by the word, "wheel," to name
> only one.
>
> I, too, expect to go to my grave, annoyed by the manner in which
> people young enough to be my great-grandchildren are, even as I type,
> working to fuck up what was once a beautiful language, in the form in
> which it was bequeathed to me, ca. 1935-1965.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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