Daniel Hernandez Argues Against The Awkward PC Latinx
But he has a bad, underthought idea of his own.
In an op-ed in the LA Times, writer Daniel Hernandez explains the latest in PC chic:
This year, Fusion and MiTú each posted videos earnestly explaining to their millennial viewers why "Latinx" is the new term everyone should use to refer to people of Latin American descent.The argument is that "Latinx" is a less determinist, more inclusive form of the words it replaces -- "Latino" for males and "Latina" for females. These gendered identifiers, the thinking goes, impose a binary, give preference to the male over the female, and leave out those who don't consider themselves either.
...Like many of its awkward predecessors, "Latinx" does not work. Its experimental "x" opens too many linguistic floodgates. And why is this kind of label necessary at all?
I don't think his suggestion works -- calling himself "Latin" in English. Latin is a language and describes various cultures.
I think the panic to demand changes in language like this is the product of weakness in women dressed up in a disguise -- with the demandingness passing for strength.
If you actually feel powerful, you don't need to niggle over using a feminine suffix. It doesn't mean you're less; it simply identifies you as a woman.
Does hating these politically correct people make me a bad person?
mpetrie98 at December 18, 2017 12:05 AM
They think that the word Latina has a weaker connotation or less prestige than Latino because of sexist bigotry. But it's the thing the word describes that gives it its connotation or prestige. Kind of like the way the word spaniel has a weaker connotation than pit bull. If cocker spaniels were known for going around ripping up pit bulls the word spaniel would have the more powerful connotation.
Twenty-five years ago the word "nurse" in a hospital usually meant a female caregiver subordinate to male providers. Some female nurses even advocated changing the name of the profession to something that sounds more prestigious. But all that would have done is change the understanding of the new word. Now, where I work I often see a distressed patient who's looking for a "nurse" swerve right around a female nurse and come up to me or another man with their problem. It's not that they think female nurses are inferior; it's that in their teenage minds a nurse on my unit is a man. I've also noticed that people now refer to me as a "nurse" or "RN" rather than as a "male nurse" the way almost everyone did 20 years ago. The understanding of the word "nurse" seems to be changing, I like to think for the better.
The best way to give the words "Latina" and "nurse" more prestige or power is for Latinas and nurses to up their game.
Ken R at December 18, 2017 12:31 AM
mpetrie98: Does hating these politically correct people make me a bad person?
No, just a little less good. As hard as it is, we're supposed to hate the sin, i.e. absurd political correctness, but love the PC sinners.
Ken R at December 18, 2017 12:43 AM
Aren’t these the people conquered by Europeans, thereby conveying the term, “Latin” to central America?
Radwaste at December 18, 2017 3:22 AM
Nobody here in the bellybutton of the Americas uses that silly word. Even the well-off upper classes known to imitate trends from the USA sees it as another idiotic thing made by the gringos.
Sixclaws at December 18, 2017 5:17 AM
> another idiotic thing made
> by the gringos
I'd suspected that would be the case. Latins (and a few other cultures to be named at a later date) don't seem to be the kind of culture to have their sexual understanding warped by milquetoast, spiritless, provincial denizens of air-conditioned academe.
Latins dance. And fuck.
Crid at December 18, 2017 5:32 AM
Plus this: the endings on latino and latina come from the Spanish language. If you don't like them, you're going to have to alter the entire language. Good luck with that.
Anyway, the genders in languages don't have a lot to do with biological gender. German, for example, has three genders: male, female and neutral. Girls are the neutral gender, despite being biologically female.
As for all the recent hoopla about variations on a theme: Sorry, folks, still only two biological genders, plus unfortunate mutations. Homo Sapiens is "bipedal", even though some few unfortunates are born with 0, 1 or 3 legs. Same for gender.
On the psychological level, gender dysphoria is a psychological disorder requiring treatment, not a reason to change language.
bradley13 at December 18, 2017 6:31 AM
Yeah, to add to that: Spanish is a Romance language, and as is the case with all the Romance language, all nouns are gendered. I don't know Spanish, but I know some French, which is kind of similar in structure. In French, the word for "table" -- "la table" (pronounced "TOB-luh") is female, while the word for "book" is "le livre" (rhymes with "leave") is male. What makes a table female, and a book male? Nothing. It's simply part of the vocabulary, something that a competent speaker of the language is expected to know. The noun gender only has meaning when talking about people, or higher animal species.
Further: "Latinx" is the sort of awkward pronunciation that Romance languages try to avoid. They don't string together hard consonant sounds the way we do sometimes in English. And, the hard 'ks' sound of the letter 'x' is seldom found in the Romance languages; it's much more likely that it represents the soft 'z' sound. (As in the word "xenon", which I think derives from Latin.)
Related: The above is presuming that the intended pronunciation is something like "la-TINKS". However, when my eye scans the word, the pronunciation that first comes to mind is "LAAH-tun-ex". The letter 'x' has some unusual connotations in English; it often represents or is a substitute for the unknown, the anonymous, the hidden. As such, it's a vocabulary red herring for the native English speaker; upon reading the word, said speaker instantly gets a mental image of a treasure map, or an algebra expression, or a band name, or a document signed by a now-deceased illiterate in a film noir movie, or something else that isn't a person.
And yeah, what Crid said.
Cousin Dave at December 18, 2017 6:55 AM
No one knows how to pronounced Latinx unless they're in the PC in-crowd, and maybe that's the point.
I love Latin people and especially, Latin women. I have a friend from Brazil, Lilian Carlvalho (actually, she has a bunch of other names riding in there like a train, but I can't remember them all). She's passionate and fun and full of life like so many Latin women I know. (I met this other woman from...Chile...maybe...at the ev psych conference this year and promptly developed a girlcrush on her for her full-of-lifeness.)
To be "Latina" conveys that spirit -- because you can pronounce it, because of the sound of it, because of the way the word works. This "Lateeenex," sounds chopped and like some kind of laundry detergent to get the spirit out.
Amy Alkon at December 18, 2017 7:07 AM
Latin is a language as dead as dead can be.
It killed the ancient Romans off
and once tried to kill me.
Ben at December 18, 2017 7:28 AM
Anyone else noticed that Latinx is often followed by Genderqueer in their Twitter profiles?
It's like they're desperate to stand out and not be just another cog in the machine.
Sixclaws at December 18, 2017 7:33 AM
Then they failed Sixclaws. I'm here in the south. This would be the sixth or seventh time they changed the name for people south of the border. Every couple of years they try for a new word. This is just the LGBT... getting in on the action. As Ken said, changing the word doesn't really change anything. The new word just comes to represent what the old word did.
Ben at December 18, 2017 9:26 AM
Lateenex is the nitrile glove specifically made to handle Habañero sauce.
Isn't it?
Radwaste at December 18, 2017 9:30 AM
Ken R, when I was little, I'm pretty sure I thought "nurse" meant "woman doctor."
But I didn't think about it much, so I'm not sure when I found out my mistake.
lenona at December 18, 2017 9:37 AM
As a youth there was only Mrs. or Miss. Certain people didn't like that there was a delineation for females and not men.
The universal "Ms." was supposed to fix that.
I realized it didn't quite fix the problem when a co-worker told me Ms.meant the woman was divorced.
goo at December 18, 2017 10:07 AM
"Lateenex is the nitrile glove specifically made to handle Habañero sauce."
I thought it was what Spanish-speaking people use to blow their noses.
Cousin Dave at December 18, 2017 11:38 AM
goo: A decade before "Ms." was invented, I learned that it was often easier to address my teachers as "Miz" than to remember whether they were "Miss" or "Missus".
markm at December 25, 2017 7:44 PM
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