fisherman/fisherperson
 

Hi.
According to the movement of men-and-women-are-created-equally-theory, a "chairman" has now become to be called as a "chairperson."

I know about that. And I think it is the matter of course to call him/her as a "chairperson" instead of a "chairman" now.

Yet, I'm still uneasy to call a fisherman as a "fisherperson".

Is it a quite natural thing for a native-English speaking person to say "fisherperson" now?

I've never heard of that term. I don't think it exists. Chairperson is a different story. Perhaps the term had to be changed because of what you said. And I also think it is a position of power, so it's also more "visible" in the corporate world and the need to change it is more obvious.

Thanks again, JohnBraden.

At least, it exists in a dictionary;
“fisherperson”の検索結果（1 件）：英辞郎 on the WEB：スペースアルク
:eek:
so, I created this thread.

Fisherperson's Wharf
 

Hi.
I found something interesting.

I went to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco at my honey-moon, 15 years ago.

So I tried to google it, and lo-and-behold,

"Fisherman's Wharf" about 4,700,000 hits.
"Fisherperson's Wharf" about 86 hits. :eek:

So there must be someone who calls it as such in this world!

What do you think?

I tried a few on-line dictionaries and fisherperson wasn't there. Google must be intelligent enough to pick up on those 86 error hits!

fisherperson sounds ridiculous to me. If it really needs to be changed it should just be changed to "fisher".

I think compared to chairman which is more modern, there has historically always been a female equivalent of fisherman; fisherwoman; which is why fisherperson sounds more redundant.

Thank you, RickOShay,
I've got your point.
It's a simple solution.

We can't say "chair" instead of "chairman, chairwoman, chairperson", because it is something else. Yet, we may say "fisher".

@Columbine
Thanks.
I agree with your point. Though I can't find "fisherwoman" in my dictionary, Google hits thousands of websites which has "fisherwoman" in it.

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According to your advice, if someone says "fisherperson" instead of "fisher" or "fisherwoman", I can feel his/her strong will that he/she is a feminist.
"I'm a feminist, feminist, feminist!! Women are not inferior to men, and at the same time, vice versa. "Fisherman" is unkind to women. "Fisherwoman" is unkind to men. Fisher" doesn't contain the connotation of me-being-a-feminist. So I dare to say "fisherperson" which has two connotation; one is sexually neutral, and another is "I'm always thinking about feminism!""

When I read some articles which have "Fisherperson's Wharf", I realized that those articles are referring to 1970's exaggerated feminism sarcastically.
And I'm very pleased to know that those attempts to change the name turned out to fail.
I personally think it is ridiculous to change the name.

You can say chair (I prefer it to chairperson). "First we need to select a chair for the committee." No one will think you're picking out furniture. :)

For fishing, fisher or angler works. An angler only fishes with a rod and line though, so it has a connotation of someone who fishes for sport rather than as a job. If they're on a fishing boat, fishing crew or worker can be used. "She's a crew member on a fishing boat."

Thank you, GinaS, for your explanations.

An 'angler' is a cool word to remember!