Robyn Lakoff (and others) have pointed out that titles like chairperson are markèd - the semiosis here being one of negation. We're pointedly NOT saying chairMAN, so we are referring to the woman in the (biggest) chair. "Chair," in and of itself, is the unmarked varietal.

One wonders, however, whether or how rapidly other sex-marked words will wither and die. What kind of list of -woman or -man words can we generate? These would be words that have no _logical_ gender; merely an "associative" one.

In reference to Rod's immediately previous post - perhaps in this wired world of ours, alternatives like "waitron" aren't far off?