Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheCapeGreek | Hacker News Reader

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be.

Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language works. If I remember correctly as well, the gender neutral form would still be Latino.

Granted, they're being referred to through English here, which one could argue could benefit from just being 'Latin' (confusion between actual Latin aside). I'm of the opinion to keep loan words as close to the original as possible. Language changes over time but some words are still explicitly from elsewhere. So, keep it as Latino/Latina.

View on HN

> Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture).

That argument that conflates the Spanish language and Latin American culture (which is not homogenous). Portuguese actually edges out Spanish in terms of European languages in South America, and there are hundreds of indigenous languages spoken there [1]. It's an appeal to the purity of a culture that is itself a product of colonialism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_America

> Portuguese actually edges out Spanish in terms of European languages in South America

We're not in South America, though. In the context of this article, we're talking about a town in the USA with a large number of immigrants from Latin America as a whole, most of whom are Hispanic and comparatively few of whom are Brazilian.

This subthread is an aside on the term "Latinx" in general, outside the context of this article. I'm specifically responding to the meme described by the GP, which ostensibly was not created in response to this article but to address general usage of the term "Latinx".

> but to address general usage of the term "Latinx"

Which, again, in English, is usually used when discussing immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic.

It sometimes refers to people who happen to be immigrants, but it's not often used in the context of a discussion involving immigration. Broadly, it refers to people and culture originating in Latin America. Many people use it to self-identify.

Actually I see a lot of people write x or @ instead of o. The x is the variety most sprayed on walls in political statements, the @ is used for stuff like birthday invites. Some people I know do it.

To use x in an English text comes across to me as political activism.

To clarify, you mean in written Spanish, right?

Yes written Spanish. Not sure how people fix it when they speak? I hear people say "muchachas y muchachos" a lot on political rallies.

There is still a push for using X, at least in Spain. The argument is that of course "La Ministro" is a patriarchal, so we should use "La Ministra", or "Consejo de Ministros y Ministras" etc etc

Isn't the adjective for the Roman "Latin" in Spanish also "Latino"? Do they get confused by this?

Yeah, I don't think that's the part that's confusing them.

And it shouldn’t confuse us either, as far as I can tell.

The tension between "all non-Anglo culture is unconditionally progressive" versus "we have to pretend linguistic gender is political" is amusing. The meme that the standard English "he", used in the context of referring to a gender unspecified person, is oppressive can't be older than the 60's; it's probably possible to document its exact source and rate of spread. The meme doesn't even make sense for its own purposes because it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way.

> it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way

it's really not that hard to use singular "they". we already do it naturally in instances like "someone left their coat here. i hope they don't need it today." it only gets confusing when you try to talk about a gender unspecified member of a group and the group at the same time.

you can certainly debate whether you should have to adjust the way you speak, but it's not like what people are requesting with pronouns is actually hard.

Singular "they" sometimes gets a bad rap (less so in the last couple years) but it's been part of the English language since the time thorn (Þ) was an English letter. It's appeared in well known written works by respected authors, such as this usage by Shakespeare:

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me as if I were their well-acquainted friend" - A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

As you point out, even people who criticize it use it, because it's natural in most situations. There would be very few people who would naturally say "each of the children called his parents" over "each of the children called their parents."

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/13/462906419/everyone-uses-singu...

>A lot of people tell you it sets their teeth on edge, but my guess is that they're not listening to themselves very attentively. Everyone uses singular "they," whether they realize it or not. In an engaging recent book called Between You & Me, the New Yorker's self-designated comma queen Mary Norris says that that use of "they" is "just wrong." But flip back a few pages and you find her writing "Nobody wanted to think they were not essential." If that sentence got by a New Yorker copy editor in her own book on grammar, what hope is there for anybody else? If you insist on coming down on singular "they," it's best to be a bit ironic about it, since you're almost certainly going to be making a hypocrite of yourself before the day is out.

Thanks for sharing this! I really felt like it must be older and more common than critics claim.

The oldest use of singular they I can find is a Middle English bible translation from 1382 (Wycliffe's Bible)

"Eche on in þer craft ys wijs"

(Each one in their craft is wise)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com