[dietr1ch]

Side rant. Cut the Latinx crap please, Latinos don't really feel represented by the force-fed "inclusive" name that straight up goes against their gendered languages. It's overriding the language to seem more inclusive in English

[moate]

Just to be clear on this one: are you Latino? Why do you speak for them? I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.

Put another way: The NAACP didn't change their name, but if you called most black folk I know "colored" they'd punch you in the throat. Language is fluid and all that.

So again I ask: Why the generalization on how a whole mish mosh of people feel.

[rachofsunshine]

I probably agree much more with you on these issues in general than I do with the other poster, and there are so many bigger problems right now, but we don't need to speak for anyone here. We just listen to what's already been said.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/09/12/la...

Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx", and of those that have, an overwhelming majority (75%) say they'd rather you don't use it. This is true regardless of age, gender, race, education level, party affiliation, orientation/gender identity, and immigration status - you don't get a much clearer picture than that in a poll. The plurality, and usually majority, preferred term across all demographic slices was "Hispanic", which is also not gendered.

If we choose particular terminology, and ask others to do so as well, shouldn't it be with the clearly-expressed preferences of the people we're talking about in mind? To me, that seems like the most obviously-respectful path.

[dietr1ch]

> Less than half of Hispanics have even heard the term "Latinx"

It doesn't help that it's unnatural to even pronounce.

> there are so many bigger problems right now

Indeed, I'm more worried about the loss of true freedom of speech and the impending sense of WW3 coming. Having HR mix up race and sexual identity in some select countries is a minor complaint.

[dietr1ch]

> Just to be clear on this one: are you Latino?

Yes, and look at the stats that the sibling post shared. I'm talking from experience and obviously some generalisation from what I saw among a few separate groups of Latinos. I'm not making stuff up just to be offended on the internet.

> I have latino friends who insist on that language, some who don't give a fuck, and latinx friends who own that jab at the patriarchal idea of forcing gender on genderless objects or groups.

Yes, but the ratios I saw had a clear trend and everyone agreed that the X at the end was clearly made up and force-fed instead of borrowed from Spanish/Portuguese/Italian/French.

[deadlydose]

> Why do you speak for them?

Why do you?

[thephyber]

Quit policing other people’s speech, please.

[lupusreal]

Lead by example.

[thephyber]

My comment was pointing out the hypocrisy of the parent.

I don’t use LatinX, but I don’t think it changes anything and it doesn’t bother me that other people do.

[dietr1ch]

> I don’t use LatinX, but I don’t think it changes anything and it doesn’t bother me that other people do.

Surely it doesn't change anything for you, but I'm not complaining because absolutely no one got mad, people were furious, but unsure how to get angry at the Diversity stuff without getting cancelled.

[ben_w]

On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.

As we're not actually using real Spanish, such criticisms feel to me like objecting to the way Star Trek dares to boldly split infinitives that have never been split before on the basis that Latin (the language) didn't split them — Latin couldn't split infinitives because infinitives in Latin are single words, just as the -x suffix to denote -[o/a in this case but way more complex when you get to all the other gendered suffixes] doesn't make sense in Spanish.

(And now I'm wondering if anyone says "una hombra" and "un mujero" for trans people…)

This is mainly a comment about English speakers borrowing the word as an exonym, my grasp of the Spanish language itself is "tourist" at best.

[dietr1ch]

> On the one hand, this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish.

I don't see many English words ending in X, so I doubt it's linguistically correct in English either. Normally you just borrow the word as closely as possible, maybe trying to make it easier to pronounce (see any word the Japanese borrow from English), but here people that didn't speak Spanish, but apparently knew a little bit took over.

[ben_w]

Box.

English corrupts a lot of stuff it borrows, the examples which come to mind are when people try to be fancy. See also "chai tea", the difference between beef and cow. Also corrupts itself spontaneously, what with all the "u"s in British English or how many "i"s there are in aluminium.

Slient letters. Queue. Ptarmigan.

[dietr1ch]

> Box.

Ok, but this isn't a Portuguese/Spanish/French word that was borrowed into English that naturally got a final X because it suited English better.

I didn't say there are no words ending in X, but it isn't common and it's not a way to help borrow words from other languages, nor is the X also borrowed.

[JumpCrisscross]

> this is linguistically correct… if we were speaking Spanish

That the linguistically correct in both English and Spanish (and other Latin-derivative languages) term “Latin” got passed over in favour of Latinx sort of speaks to the motivations of those who pushed it.

[ben_w]

"Latin" is a demonym in Spanish?

Huh. Well, I repeat the point about my Spanish language (lack of) skill.

(At time of writing Spanish is not listed on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/latin or https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Latin, but I don't know how complete that dictionary is).

[JumpCrisscross]

> "Latin" is a demonym in Spanish?

It’s not--it's still a neologism. But it’s grammatically conventional to both languages in a way LatinX is not. (The idea of neutering languages without a neuter tense is its own can if worms.)