Chair (pronounced cherr)
(1) A seat, especially if designed for one person,
usually with four legs (though other designs are not uncommon) for support and
a rest for the back, sometimes with rests for the arms (as distinct from a sofa,
stool, bench etc).
(2) Something which serves as a chair or provides
chair-like support (often used in of specialized medical devices) and coined as
required (chairlift, sedan chair, wheelchair etc).
(3) A seat of office or authority; a position of
authority such as a judge.
(4) In academic use, a descriptor of a professorship.
(5) The person occupying a seat of office, especially the
chairperson (the nominally gendered term “chairman” sometimes still used, even
of female or non-defined chairs).
(6) In an orchestra, the position of a player, assigned
by rank (1st chair, 2nd chair etc).
(7) In informal use, an ellipsis of electric chair (often
in the phrase “Got the chair” (ie received a death sentence)).
(8) In structural engineering, the device used in reinforced-concrete
construction to maintain the position of reinforcing rods or strands during the
pouring operation.
(9) In glass-blowing, a glassmaker's bench having
extended arms on which a blowpipe is rolled in shaping glass.
(10) In railroad construction, a metal block for
supporting a rail and securing it to a crosstie or the like (mostly UK).
(11) To place or seat in a chair.
(12) To install in office.
(13) To preside over a committee, board, tribunal etc or
some ad hoc gathering; to act as a chairperson.
(14) To carry someone aloft in a sitting position after a
triumph or great achievement (mostly UK and performed after victories in
sport).
(15) In chemistry, one of two possible conformers of
cyclohexane rings (the other being boat), shaped roughly like a chair.
(16) A vehicle for one person; either a sedan chair borne
upon poles, or a two-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse (also called a gig)
(now rare).
(17) To award a chair to the
winning poet at an eisteddfod (exclusive to Wales).
1250-1300: From the Middle English chayer, chaire, chaiere, chaere, chayre & chayere, from the Old French chaiere
& chaere (chair, seat, throne),
from the Latin cathedra (seat), from the Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra), the construct being κατά (katá) (down) + ἕδρα (hédra) (seat). It displaced the native stool and settle, which shifted
to specific meanings. The twelfth
century modern French chaire (pulpit,
throne) in the sixteenth century separated in meaning when the more furniture
came to be known as a chaise (chair). Chair is a noun & verb and chaired &
chairing are verbs; the noun plural is chairs.
The figurative sense of "seat of office or
authority" emerged at the turn of the fourteenth century and originally
was used of professors & bishops (there once being rather more overlap
between universities and the Church).
That use persisted despite the structural changes in both institutions but
it wasn’t until 1816 the meaning “office of a professor” was extended from the mid-fifteenth
century sense of the literal seat from which a professor conducted his lectures. Borrowing from academic practice, the general
sense of “seat of a person presiding at meeting” emerged during the 1640s and from
this developed the idea of a chairman, although earliest use of the verb form “to
chair a meeting” appears as late as 1921.
Although sometimes cited as indicative of the “top-down” approach taken
by second-wave feminism, although it was in the 1980s that the term chairwoman
(woman who leads a formal meeting) first attained general currency, it had
actually been in use since 1699, a coining apparently thought needed for mere descriptive
accuracy rather than an early shot in the culture wars, chairman (occupier of a
chair of authority) having been in use since the 1650s and by circa 1730 it had gained
the familiar meaning “member of a corporate body appointed to preside at
meetings of boards or other supervisor bodies”.
By the 1970s however, the culture wars had started and the once innocuous
“chairwoman” was to some controversial, as was the gender-neutral alternative “chairperson”
which seems first to have appeared in 1971.
Now, most seem to have settled on “chair" which seems unobjectionable
although presumably, linguistic structuralists could claim it’s a clipping of (and
therefore implies) “chairman”.
Chairbox offers a range of “last shift” coffin-themed
chairs, said to be ideal for those "stuck
in a dead-end job, sitting on a chair in a cubicle". The available finishes include walnut (left)
and for those who enjoy being reminded of cremation, charcoal wood can be used
for the seating area (right). An
indicative list price is Stg£8300 (US$10,400) for a Last Shift trimmed in velvet.
The slang use as a short form of electric chair dates
from 1900 and was used to refer both to the physical device and the capital
sentence. In interior decorating, the chair-rail
was a timber molding fastened to a wall at such a height as would prevent the
wall being damaged by the backs of chairs.
First documented in 1822, chair rails are now made also from synthetic
materials. The noun wheelchair (also
wheel-chair) dates from circa 1700, and one so confined is said sometimes to be
“chair bound”. The high-chair (an infant’s
seat designed to make feeding easier) had probably been improvised for
centuries but was first advertised in 1848.
The term easy chair (a chair designed especially for comfort) dates from
1707. The armchair (also arm-chair), a "chair
with rests for the elbows", although a design of long-standing, was first
so-described in the 1630s and the name outlasted the contemporary alternative (elbow-chair). The adjectival sense, in reference to “criticism
of matters in which the critic takes no active part” (armchair critic, armchair
general etc) dates from 1879. In
academic use, although in the English-speaking world the use of “professor”
seems gradually to be changing to align with US practice, the term “chair”
continues in its traditional forms: There are chairs (established professorships),
named chairs (which can be ancient or more recent creations which acknowledge
the individual, family or institution providing the endowment which funds the
position), personal chairs (whereby the title professor (in some form) is
conferred on an individual although no established position exists), honorary
chairs (unpaid appointments) and even temporary chairs (which means whatever
the institution from time-to-time says it means).
In
universities, the term “named chair” refers usually to a professorship endowed
with funds from a donor, typically bearing the name of the donor or whatever
title they nominate and the institution agrees is appropriate. On rare occasions, named chairs have been
created to honor an academic figure of great distinction (usually someone with
a strong connection with the institution) but more often the system exists to
encourage endowments which provide financial support for the chair holder's
salary, research, and other academic activities. For a donor, it’s a matter both of legacy &
philanthropy in that a named chair is one of the more subtle and potentially
respectable forms of public relations and a way to contribute to teaching &
research in a field of some interest or with a previous association.
Professor Michael Simons (official photograph issued by Yale University's School of Medicine).
So it can
be a win-win situation but institutions do need to practice due diligence in
the process of naming or making appointments to named chairs as a long running
matter at Yale University demonstrates. In
2013, an enquiry convened by Yale found Professor Michael Simons (b 1957) guilty
of sexual harassment and suspended him as Chief of Cardiology at the School of
Medicine. Five years on, the professor
accused Yale of “punishing
him again” for the same conduct in a gender-discriminatory effort to
appease campus supporters of the #MeToo movement which had achieved national prominence. That complaint was prompted when Professor
Simons was in 2018 appointed to, and then asked to resign from a named chair,
the Robert W Berliner Professor of Medicine, endowed by an annual grant of US$500,000
from the family of renal physiologist, Robert Berliner (1915-2002). Professor
Simons took his case to court and early in 2024 at a sitting of federal court
ruled, he obtained a ruling in his favour, permitting him to move to trial,
Yale’s motion seeing a summary judgment in all matters denied, the judge fining
it appropriate that two of his complaints (one on the basis of gender
discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and one
under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act (1972)) should be heard before a
jury. The trial judge noted in his
judgment that there appeared to be a denial of due process in 1918 and that
happened at a time when (as was not disputed), Yale was “the subject of news reports criticizing its
decision to reward a sexual harasser with an endowed chair.”
What the
documents presented in Federal court revealed was that Yale’s handling of the
matter had even within the institution not without criticism. In 2013 the University-Wide Committee on
Sexual Misconduct found the professor guilty of sexual harassment and he was suspended
(but not removed) as chief of cardiology at the School of Medicine. Internal documents subsequently leaked to the
New York Times (NYT) revealed there were 18 faculty members dissatisfied with
that outcome and a week after the NYT sought comment from Yale, it was
announced Simons would be removed from the position entirely and in November 2014,
the paper reported that Yale had also removed him from his position as director
of its Cardiovascular Research Center. Simons
alleges that these two additional actions were taken in response to public
reaction to the stories published by the NYT but the university disputed that, arguing
the subsequent moves were pursuant to the findings of an internal “360 review”
of his job performance. In 2018, Simons was
asked to relinquish the Berliner chair on the basis he would be appointed instead
to another endowed chair. In the documents
Simons filed in Federal Court, this request came after “one or more persons … sympathetic to the
#MeToo movement” contacted the Berliner family encouraging them to
demand that the University remove Simons from the professorship, prompting
Yale, “fearing
a backlash from the #MeToo activists and hoping to placate them,” to
“began
exploring” his removal from the chair.
School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Later in 2018, Simons was
duly appointed to another named chair, prompting faculty members, students and
alumni to send an open letter to Yale’s president expressing “disgust and
disappointment” at the appointment.
The president responded with a formal notice to Simmons informing him he
had 24 hours to resign from the chair, and Simmons also alleges he was told by
the president of “concerns” the institution had about the public criticism. In October 2019, Simons filed suit against
Yale (and a number of individuals) on seven counts: breach of contract, breach
of the implied warranty of fair dealing, wrongful discharge, negligent
infliction of emotional distress, breach of privacy, and discrimination on the
basis of gender under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of
the Education Amendments of 1972. Three
of these (wrongful discharge, negligent infliction of emotional distress and
breach of privacy) were in 2020 struck-out in Federal Court and this was the
point at which Yale sought summary judgment for the remainder. This was partially granted but the judge held
that the matter of gender discrimination in violation of Title VII and Title IX
needed to be decided by a jury. A trial
date has not yet been set but it will be followed with some interest. While all cases are decided on the facts
presented, it’s expected the matter may be an indication of the current state
of the relative strength of “black letter
law” versus “prevailing community
expectations”.
Personal chair: Lindsay Lohan adorning a chair.
The Roman Catholic Church’s dogma of papal infallibility
holds that a pope’s rulings on matters of faith and doctrine are infallibility
correct and cannot be questioned. When
making such statements, a pope is said to be speaking ex cathedra (literally “from the
chair” (of the Apostle St Peter, the first pope)). Although ex
cathedra pronouncements had been issued since medieval times, as a point of
canon law, the doctrine was codified first at the First Ecumenical Council of
the Vatican (Vatican I; 1869–1870) in the document Pastor aeternus (shepherd forever).
Since Vatican I, the only ex cathedra decree has been Munificentissimus Deus (The most
bountiful God), issued by Pius XII (1876–1958; pope 1939-1958) in 1950, in
which was declared the dogma of the Assumption; that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly
life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory". Pius XII never made explicit whether the
assumption preceded or followed earthly death, a point no pope has since
discussed although it would seem of some theological significance. Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, there
had been decrees issued ex cathedra. In Ineffabilis
Deus (Ineffable God (1854)), Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) defined
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an important
point because of the theological necessity of Christ being born free of sin, a
notion built upon by later theologians as the perpetual virginity of Mary. It asserts that Mary "always a virgin, before, during and after
the birth of Jesus Christ", explaining the biblical references to
brothers of Jesus either as children of Joseph from a previous marriage,
cousins of Jesus, or just folk closely associated with the Holy Family.
Technically, papal infallibility may have been invoked only the once since codification but since the early post-war years, pontiffs have found ways to achieve the same effect, John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) & Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) both adept at using what was in effect a personal decree a power available to one who sits at the apex of what is in constitutional terms an absolute theocracy. Critics have called this phenomenon "creeping infallibility" and its intellectual underpinnings own much to the tireless efforts of Benedict XVI while he was head of the Inquisition (by then called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and now renamed the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF)) during the late twentieth century. The Holy See probably doesn't care but DDF is also the acronym, inter-alia, for "drug & disease free" and (in gaming) "Doom definition file". There's also the DDF Network which is an aggregator of pornography content.
The “chair” photo (1963) of Christine Keeler
(1942-2017) by Hong Kong Chinese photographer Lewis Morley (1925-2013) (left) and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer (b 1961) in Scandal (1989, a Harvey Weinstein (b 1952) production) (centre). The motif was reprised by Taiwanese-American
photographer Yu Tsai (b 1975) in his sessions for the Lindsay Lohan Playboy photo-shoot;
it was used for the cover of the magazine’s January/February 2012 issue (right). Ms Lohan wore shoes for some of the shoot but these were still "nudes" because "shoes don't count"; everybody knows that.
The Profumo
affair was one of those fits of morality which from time-to-time would afflict
English society in the twentieth century and was a marvellous mix of class,
sex, spying & money, all things which make an already good scandal
especially juicy. The famous image of model
Christine Keeler, nude and artfully positioned sitting backwards on an
unexceptional (actually a knock-off) plywood chair, was taken in May 1963 when
the moral panic over the disclosure Ms Keeler simultaneously was enjoying the affection
of both a member of the British cabinet and a Soviet spy. John Profumo (1915-2006) was the UK’s
Minister for War (the UK cabinet retained the position until 1964 although it
was disestablished in the US in 1947) who, then 46, was found to be conducting
an adulterous affair with the then 19 year old topless model at the same time she
(presumably as her obviously crowded schedule permitted) fitted in trysts with
a KGB agent, attached to the Soviet embassy with the cover of naval
attaché. Although there are to this day
differing interpretations of the scandal, there have never been any doubts this
potential Cold-War conduit between Moscow and Her Majesty’s Secretary of State
for War represented at least a potential conflict of interest. The fallout from the scandal ended Profumo’s
political career, contributed to the fall of Harold Macmillan’s (1894–1986; UK
prime-minister 1957-1963) government and was one of a number of the factors in
the social changes which marked English society in the 1960s. Woken from his sleep to be told the scandal was about to break, Macmillan remarked: "Well, at least it was with a woman".
Commercially
& technically, photography then was a different business and the “chair” image was the last shot on a
12-exposure film, all taken in less than five minutes at the end of a session which
hurriedly had been arranged because Ms Keeler had signed a contract which included
a “nudity” clause for photos to be used as “publicity stills” for a proposed
film about the scandal. As things turned
out, the film was never released (not until Scandal
(1989) one would appear) but the photograph was leaked to the tabloid
press, becoming one of the more famous of the era although later feminist
critiques would deconstruct the issues of exploitation they claimed were
inherent. Playboy’s editors would not be
unaware of the criticism but the use of a chair to render a nude image SFW
(suitable for work) remains in the SOP (standard operating procedures) manual.
Contact
sheet from photoshoot, Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum: exhibit E.2830-2016.
Before the “nude”
part which concluded the session, two rolls of film had already been shot with
the subject sitting in various positions (on the chair and the floor) while “wearing”
a small leather jerkin. At that point
the film’s producers mentioned the “nude” clause. Ms Keeler wasn’t enthusiastic but the producers
insisted so all except subject and photographer left the room and the last roll
was shot, some of the earlier poses reprised while others were staged, the
last, taken with the camera a little further away with the subject in what Mr
Morley described as “a perfect positioning”, was the “chair” shot.
The “Keeler
Chair” (left) and an Arne Jacobsen Model 3107 (right).
Both chair & the gelatin-silver
print of the photograph are now in the collections of London’s Victoria and
Albert (V&A) Museum (the photograph exhibit E.2-2002; the chair W.10-2013). Although often wrongly identified a Model
3107 (1955) by Danish modernist architect & furniture designer Arne
Jacobsen (1902-1971), it’s actually an example of one of a number of
inexpensive knock-offs produced in the era.
Mr Morley in 1962 bought six (at five shillings (50c) apiece) for his
studio and it’s believed his were made in Denmark although the identity of the
designer or manufacturer are unknown. Unlike
a genuine 3107, the knock-off has a handle cut-out (in a shape close to a regular
trapezoid) high on the back, an addition both functional and ploy typical of those
used by knock-off producers seeking to evade accusations of violations of
copyright. Structurally, a 3017 uses a
thinner grade of plywood and a more subtle molding. The half-dozen chairs in Mr Morley’s studio
were mostly unnoticed office furniture until Ms Keeler lent one its infamy
although they did appear in others of his shoots including those from his
session with television personality & interviewer Sir David Frost
(1939–2013) and it’s claimed the same chair was used for both. In London’s second-hand shops it’s still
common to see the knock-offs (there were many) described as “Keeler” chairs and
Ms Lohan’s playboy shoot was one of many in which the motif has been used. The obvious choice of pose for Joanne Whalley-Kilmer’s promotional
shots for the 1989 film in which she played Ms Keeler, it appeared also on the the
covers of the DVD & Blu-ray releases
Old Smoky, the electric chair once used in the Tennessee prison
system, Alcatraz East Crime Museum. "Old Sparky" was once the preferred but in modern use "the chair" seems to have prevailed.
"Then we'd get the chair": The Simpsons, season six.
Crooked Hillary Clinton in pantsuit.Although the numbers did bounce around a little, polling by politico.com found that typically about half of Republican voters believe crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) should be locked up while
fewer than 2% think she should “get the chair”, apparently on the basis of
her being guilty of something although some might just find her “really annoying” and take the pragmatic view a death sentence would remove at least that problem from their life. The term “electric chair” is most associated with the
device used for executions but is also common slang to describe other machinery
including electric wheelchairs and powered (heat, cooling or movement) seats or
chairs of many types. First used in the US
during the 1890s, like the guillotine, the electric chair was designed as a
more humane (ie faster) method of execution compared with the then common hanging
where death could take minutes. Now
rarely used (and in some cases declared unconstitutional as a “cruel &
unusual punishment”), in some US states, technically it remains available including as an
option the condemned may choose in preference to lethal injection or the firing squad.
Electric Chair Suite (1971) screen print decology by Andy Warhol.
Based on a
newspaper photograph (published in 1953) of the death chamber at Sing Sing
Prison in New York, where US citizens Julius (1918-1953) & Ethel Rosenberg (1915-1953) were that year
executed as spies, Andy Warhol (1928–1987) produced a number of versions of Electric Chair, part of the artist’s Death and Disaster series which,
beginning in 1963, depicted imagery such as car crashes, suicides and urban
unrest. The series was among the many
which exploited his technique of transferring a photograph in glue onto silk, a
method which meant each varied in some slight way. His interest was two-fold: (1) what is the
effect on the audience of render the same image with variations and (2) if truly
gruesome pictures repeatedly are displayed, is the effect one of reinforcement
or desensitization? His second question was
later revisited as the gratuitous repetition of disturbing images became more
common as the substantially unmediated internet achieved critical mass. The first of the Electric Chair works was created in 1964.
