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Totally OT: Re: PC or not PC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregory Parkinson" <glp@panix.com>
> > At our college there
> >are no "chairman" anymore. They are known as "chairpersons" or
> >sometimes as "chair", as in, "Prof. Robert W. Schramm, Chair of the
> >Department of Physics." That would be an antique, well padded chair,
> >of course.
>
> It's funny at first but you get used to it. Would you object if they had
> changed the name to "chairwoman" and used it for both males and
> females in that role?
It is occasionally nice to be able to bathe in reflected glory.........In
Scotland, the word "Chairman" is not widely used, it being an English term.
Since centuries before PC became a fashionable fad, the term we have used
for the person holding that job has been "Convenor"- that is, he or she who
brings together- which term, as I hope will be noted, is not
gender-specific.
My objection to PC is not that it "protects the feelings of minorities", (it
does not) it is that it attempts to disregard, render as null and
inconsequential, all social, cultural, national, gender and racial
differences. Well, these differences do exist, and the right approach must
be to celebrate them, not to try to sweep them under the carpet, where they
can fester.
It's about time we all accepted that people _are_ different, and that these
differences do not threaten, but enrichen us all.
Rod