Janet Cameron

The debate rages on. Yet this problematic word derives from history, when the male of the highest status would be seated for weighty debates. The remainder of the elders would stand, thus signifying the seated male’s importance. Yes, the word “chairman” means seniority. It means importance. It means twiddle yer forelock, unworthy wretches. It means – a  bloke !  Women just didn’t hack it as decision makers in those bad old days. “Chairman” means, literally, “man of the chair.”  And today, as Lesley Bates, “Chair” of the University of the Third Age, Parbold, Newburgh and District, points out, “The problem is clearly the use of the term “chair” whether it precedes a gender term or not. Given that the importance of seating in relation to rank is now almost defunct, is it not time to get rid of the term and start to use more apt terms, such as “president”?”   Read more...

To be a writer, you need to be a thinker. Thinking is working. If you are gazing out of a window, others think you're dreaming or lazing, but, if you're a writer, it's much more likely you're plotting your next story, novel, article or poem. Here's some brilliant stuff about thinking from an amazing 17th century thinker: John Locke - On Thinking About Thinking Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons We see Locke as the Father of Empiricism, a philosophy promoting the discovery of truth through experience; that we know nothing that does not come to us through our senses. Locke did not believe that innate ideas existed but rather that the human mind at birth was literally a “blank slate,” and all knowledge came directly from the senses. Some thinkers now dispute the doctrine of the Blank Slate, for example, Professor Steven Pinker. In his book  The Blank Slate,  Pinker explains his conviction that intellectuals, who subscribe to the theory that the human m...