05-18-2004, 07:37 PM
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<----Snappin' Pussy
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Queensland, Australia
Posts: 106,936
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Chairman
Contemporary non-sexist usage calls for the word chair to be used in place of chairman because this position is no longer exclusively occupied by males. In a bit of revisionist etymology, some claim that the term chairman is inherently non-sexist because the -man portion comes from the Latin manus, meaning hand. The chairman is the hand of the one sitting in the chair guiding the meeting.
This is simply incorrect. It comes from chair, as in the chair of authority, plus man, or person. The word appears as early as 1654. Chairwoman is not that much younger. It appears as early as 1699, although it was not in common use until the 19th century
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*~Sharni~*
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