Dot Wordsworth

Mind your language | 3 February 2007

It is one thing to argue that man can refer to a woman, another to argue that chair cannot

issue 03 February 2007

A reader wrote in to share his triumph at thwarting an attempt by an organisation to which he belongs to change the title ‘chairman’ to ‘chair’. The current chairman happens to be a woman. ‘It is ridiculous,’ our reader writes, ‘what person has four legs and is made of wood? The syllable man does not mean masculine only.’

Well, it is one thing to argue that man can refer to a woman, another to argue that chair cannot. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary were perfectly familiar with the use of chair to mean ‘the occupant of the chair, as invested with its dignity (as the throne is for the sovereign), e.g., in the cry “Chair! Chair!” when the authority of the chairman is appealed to’. They quoted The Pickwick Papers (1837) in illustration. Indeed this usage is to be found in the 17th century, with a diary entry from 1659 reading, ‘The Chair behaves himself like Busby amongst so many schoolboys.’

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