Since 9/11, I have worked side by side with folks in the Air
Force every day. The universal term for any one of these
is Airman. It rhymes
precisely with chairman -- which
means that the -man is here merely
suffixal, the vowel being unstressed and qualitatively reduced: chairm’n,
airm’n. (Phonetically, the
unstressed vowel has been demoted to at most a schwa, and often has disappeared
altogether, the -n becoming syllabic
by compensation: cf. rock
‘n’ roll. -- Contrast the
vowel in stunt man, which remains
full.)
Accordingly, the term *airwoman
does not exist, and no-one is clamoring for it. And no-one, but no-one, is demanding to be rechristened as *airpeople or *airpersons or *airindividuals
or *Americans with airiness or
whatever.
The USAF has a lot of cool slang, and perhaps sometime I’ll
share it (or you… airmen can add your favorites in a comment to
this post); but the point here is
merely to notice the irenic lexical state of affairs in today’s Air Force,
versus the hurry-scurrying going on over at the Marines, as reported in today’s
MSM:
The Marines just took ‘man’ out of
19 job titles, and people are losing their minds
The force will rename 19 of its job
titles to make occupational specialties more gender neutral. Critics argue
political correctness is taking over the military.
“You’d think
someone who has seen combat would have more stones.”
“You know, I was going to [complain] about PC crap … but “Infantry
Assault Marine” sounds kinda cool …”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/28/the-marines-just-took-man-out-of-19-job-titles-and-people-are-losing-their-minds/
Now, there are neologisms and neologisms; this batch seems to have been crafted
with a good ear, at any rate. Infantry
Assault Marine does indeed
sound way cool.
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