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>>I find "chairperson" to be less ambiguous than "chair".
Karen Kay says:
>In these 3 instances of dept. heads, endowed chairs, and committee
>chairs, the word 'chair' is usually preceded by some explicatory
>modifier
Therefore, each use of "chair" is unambiguous. So, to be more
exact, I should probably say...
I find "chairperson" to be less ambiguous than "chair" when
there is no additional context.
The same criteria can be applied to "sie/hir", or other gender neutral
terms. Does the term communicate? If my audience does not understand
me, then it does not mean that my audience is a feminist radical or a
male sexist. It means that _I_ failed to communicate.
I am responsible for communicating, not my audience. If my audience
does not understand my referencing, then I must change my reference.
This leads me directly back to my original point.
Technical Language must be unambiguous. One must communicate before
one can communicate fairly.
David (The Man) Blyth
Technical Writer
Alsys (San Diego)
dsb -at- alsys -dot- com
Blodo Poa Maximus
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