"Wreck of the Old 97"

♫They were goin' down the grade, makin' 90 miles and hour,
When his whistle broke into a scream.."♫

He would never have written '90 miles per hour'.. literary freedom over technical propriety...

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"...the utterly ridiculous "chairperson"."

I have always thought that a better word would be 'convenor' as used in the song The Kirk Soiree

"My business grew so rapidly and so did my renown
That soon I was elected to the council o' the town
And they made me the convenor o' the sewerage committee
For the story I had started at the kirk soiree"

I gather that the term is commonly used in Scotland for church business, if not even more widely.