[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.)