Like senorxs or señor@s. Where the X or @ means ‘o’ or ‘e’ (male) or ‘a’ (female). I like the way they do this.
This has some issues as it doesn’t include non-binary options. I think it’s also more of a protest against the patriarchal nature of the Spanish language which always defaults to the male version in the case where the gender is unknown or a mix.
How is pronounced I don’t really know. People don’t really speak it in practice. It’s more used written.
Spanish is my first language. Spanish defaults to masculine of words, but so do all Latin based languages. Here in the states we see Latinx. In Mexico and South America, “latine” is becoming prevalent.
Linguistically speaking, it’s absurd. Polls in the USA, where Latinx was invented by uncomfortable, uninformed white people to try and be inclusive, show that 93% of the latino / hispanic population either disapprove of or don’t care about it.
As someone with no skin in the game, I don’t understand why people don’t just say “Latin” when they’re speaking English. We already don’t use genders, and routinely ignore plenty of other foreign language rules like plurals (“a cannoli”, for example). I don’t think anyone is going to be confused and think you’re talking about the Italic people annexed by Rome in 338 BC.
Because we’re not Latin - that’s just the language spoken by the Roman empire. In fact, latino is a bit wrong. Something my mom rankled at when I was growing up. Oddly enough, my grandma who got her PhD in Spanish from the University of Habana, didn’t give two shits.
Hispanic refers to “Hispaniola,” the kingdom primarily situated on the Iberian peninsula which had Portugal, Spain, and parts of France in it (to simplify the explanation).
Latino is accepted and fine. Hispanic seems to be fine as well. Latin works, but again, it’s sort of wrongish.
My perspective has always been “if it’s good enough for John Leguizamo to use on HBO, it’s good enough for me.” And he very frequently referred to his ethnicity as Latin in his comedy.
And then a few weeks ago he was on CNN saying Latinx.
Point being, the thing that matters is that the intent is to be respectful. Using the wrong word to offend makes you an asshole, and it doesn’t matter if you’re misgendering someone or denigrating an entire ethnicity. Using the wrong word because it’s ambiguous, or it’s traditional, or you’re not sure is a different matter. Most words were wrong at some point, because language changes. The point is that you treat other humans as people, and not as political targets.
Way to miss the point. None of this is news to me, and prescriptivism is a losing argument. I personally despise the term Latinx–just like I despiss Mx. I wouldn’t default to either. But I’ll call anyone whatever they prefer. If you want to doggedly refuse to accommodate someone just because their preference puts them in a minority, who are you actually helping?
I do not refuse to address people on their preferences. I do believe the conversation about the topic, in general, has gone well beyond what I would consider reasonable.
That’s my point in linking the surveys: for some reason “Latinx” is still being used despite how reviled it is by our community.
Hot take: gendered language doesn’t serve any meaningful purpose and we should just get rid of it. There is no need for inanimate non-gendered objects to have a linguistic gender.
It’s still entirely non-standard, and not explicitly protected under law.
By all means, push the bounds; and I would hope you establish legal precedent. However, there is little that offers prior circumstance; you are still arguing how things should be, rather than how things are right now. Because of that, courts are not a sufficient venue, it must be argued at the political level.
I agree that Mx is made up bullshit, much like “Latinx” is nonsense in Spanish, but the law does not make any such distinction. You cannot be discriminated against in your job based on your sexual identity, even if you identified as an Apache helicopter (“oh yes daddy, let me fuck you in your missile tubes” - “hah, as if you’d even touch the sides”).
Boy do I have bad news for you about every other word that exists in every single language. There is no word tree we harvest fresh ripe new words from, everything is made up. We are just meat squirting air through our various holes because we like the sounds they make and wish to communicate thought.
Something being made up doesn’t make it bullshit, but something made up by a tiny minority within a minority expecting everyone else to adopt it certainly does.
Is it really so hard to respect a person enough to address them with the courtesy title they ask you to use? Are you in any way inconvenienced by saying “Hello Mx. TWeaK, how are you today”?
No, but unless someone tells me that they want to be referred to as “Mx” I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean - neither should they be vilified for coming up with a personal definition that suits them better.
It’s a two way street. You’re free to be yourself and to stand out from the crowd, but doing so naturally invites inquesition. Such inquesition is not inherently malicious, even if malicious people are more likely to ask questions.
The reasonable ground is somewhere in between. Noisy people on either side demand that they be seen as right, but the fact is they’re both an insignificant minority with an unobjective opinion. One minority is smaller and more vulnerable, and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.
Question: “I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean”
Who has ever done this to you. Ever. Who have you met that asked you to address them in a specific way then got pissy at you over it? I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but neither me nor anyone I know nor anyone who knows a person I know has ever had this happen to them.
Also: “and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.”
How can someone be wrong about the courtesy title that they choose to use? Like the entire concept and name ‘courtesy title’ make it pretty clear what they are about.
Who has ever done this to you. Ever. Who have you met that asked you to address them in a specific way then got pissy at you over it? I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but neither me nor anyone I know nor anyone who knows a person I know has ever had this happen to them.
No one. At the same time, people here seem to be getting a little pissy over the thought of asking the question or not immediately accepting any answer - hence my statement in clarification. My statement is confined to the hypotheticals in our conversation, dismissing them out of hand would be hypocritical.
Also: “and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.”
How can someone be wrong about the courtesy title that they choose to use? Like the entire concept and name ‘courtesy title’ make it pretty clear what they are about.
First, my statement that it “doesn’t mean everything they say is right” is meant to cover extreme limits, it doesn’t explicitly refer to things we’ve said but things that could potentially be extrapolated from that. I’m trying to form a concise statement that covers as much as possible.
Second, using a “courtesty title” and even people accepting that does not mean the courtesy title is not “made up bullshit”. People accept bullshit all the time - just look at Trump supporters. It’s only when the made up idea is accepted by a critical mass that it ceases to be bullshit; and even then, it could still be reasonably labelled as bullshit, particularly if it doesn’t have a logical origin.
Maybe “Mx.” as an abbreviation for “Mix” has some logical origin, but at the same time it doesn’t really fit in line with “Mister, Miss, Missus”, and it certainly isn’t established like those terms are nor is it immediately apparent what the abbreviation is short for.
Some measure of rejection should be expected when you’re asking people to adapt their native language to suit yourself. Your personal expression should not dictate how others express themselves in communication; communicating is a mutual process between people, without an agreement on terminology things are neither right nor wrong, it’s all just made up bullshit until we agree - and even then…
Do your classes take place entirely over text? They’re asking how you pronounce that in speech.
Mr. Is short for “Mister” Mrs is short for mistress, but is usually pronounced “Misses”
So how does one pronounce Mx.? Mix or Mixter? Mixes? And sometimes Xs are pronounced like Z, so is it just Mmmz?
Asking how to pronounce someone’s preferred pronouns is entirely reasonable when their preferred pronoun is not a regular part of the English language. I’d rather know how to say something and not offend someone than say it wrong for who knows how long and definitely offend them.
I’m not assuming you would know. Nobody is. If they’re introducing themselves, that’s how you would know. If you are a third party and want to learn for yourself, there is a very easy way to do that.
Your version of “common sense” in this situation only applies to a small minority that naturally extrapolates beyond the meaning of the statement alone.
“Mx.” as a prefix is not in any way established in common vernacular, nor does it easily make sense unless you assume they’re doing something specific that most people don’t do.
However, the law says that anyone is free to do so as they please; you can sexually identify in any way and must not be discriminated against for that in terms of your employment.
It’s not “fairly simple if you have common sense”. The known abbreviations have been in use for a hundred or more years and are widely known. Everyone knows how to pronounce them, the only curveball is Mrs being misses since it was originallymistress but that word later became associated with cheating and “ladies of the night”.
Mx was made up recently, it stands for nothing AFAIK. They just took the standard M beginning and slapped X on it because X tends to mean “unknown”.
It’s akin to asking you to address me as “Zf. Cat” because that’s what makes me feel comfortable.
Now you have to remember that for every interaction with me. If you happen to call me sometime else, I’ll grit my teeth and have to correct you or if I’m an asshole, I’ll berate you about it, constantly. You will also have to refer to me as Zf. Cat to everyone you know, regardless of whether or not they know me, or are in my presence.
You should be asking yourself why you assume the person would react angrily instead of just politely correcting the pronunciation. If someone accidentally mispronounces my name I gently correct them, while smiling, and I have never once been offended or take it personally. You also assume it is a heavy burden on others to simply call people what they’d like to be called. When it is not. Being angry over this is not a healthy attitude. It’s simple manners to be considerate of others and that is precisely what the person is asking for, nothing more.
If you have to correct someone about your name/title every single time it gets pretty damn annoying. I met a girl years ago whose name was spelled Remy but pronounced Ray-me she said “I hate my parents for it” (I doubt she actually hated her parents, but hated the fact that they gave her a “bad” name).
The context is Mx. already being used and recognized around the country and around the world. It’s new, but it’s not just something the teacher made up.
Well see, common sense would have me ask “hm, how do I say that?” then google it, then when I see that it’s simply pronounced “mix” I’d say “oh, okay”. And then go on about my day… instead of ranting about how hard it is to figure out and how angry it should make everyone. But that’s just me.
If it were me, I would probably figure out what the person I’m trying to argue arguing with was actually arguing about. Instead of getting up on a soapbox and pretending like I know what I’m arguing about. But that would take effort.
But you keep using those canned responses you got ready to go.
How do you even say that? “Mexico Smith, can I get a hall pass?”
Here in Spain you see X or @ a lot.
Like senorxs or señor@s. Where the X or @ means ‘o’ or ‘e’ (male) or ‘a’ (female). I like the way they do this.
This has some issues as it doesn’t include non-binary options. I think it’s also more of a protest against the patriarchal nature of the Spanish language which always defaults to the male version in the case where the gender is unknown or a mix.
How is pronounced I don’t really know. People don’t really speak it in practice. It’s more used written.
Spanish is my first language. Spanish defaults to masculine of words, but so do all Latin based languages. Here in the states we see Latinx. In Mexico and South America, “latine” is becoming prevalent.
Linguistically speaking, it’s absurd. Polls in the USA, where Latinx was invented by uncomfortable, uninformed white people to try and be inclusive, show that 93% of the latino / hispanic population either disapprove of or don’t care about it.
Edit: putting this up higher for visibility.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
Use latine, it already exists in the language
I will refrain. Thanks.
Latine is so obviously the better choice, but no, 'Muricans have to anglicize it to make it theirs. 🙄
As someone with no skin in the game, I don’t understand why people don’t just say “Latin” when they’re speaking English. We already don’t use genders, and routinely ignore plenty of other foreign language rules like plurals (“a cannoli”, for example). I don’t think anyone is going to be confused and think you’re talking about the Italic people annexed by Rome in 338 BC.
Because we’re not Latin - that’s just the language spoken by the Roman empire. In fact, latino is a bit wrong. Something my mom rankled at when I was growing up. Oddly enough, my grandma who got her PhD in Spanish from the University of Habana, didn’t give two shits.
Hispanic refers to “Hispaniola,” the kingdom primarily situated on the Iberian peninsula which had Portugal, Spain, and parts of France in it (to simplify the explanation).
Latino is accepted and fine. Hispanic seems to be fine as well. Latin works, but again, it’s sort of wrongish.
Edit: putting this up higher for visibility.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
My perspective has always been “if it’s good enough for John Leguizamo to use on HBO, it’s good enough for me.” And he very frequently referred to his ethnicity as Latin in his comedy.
And then a few weeks ago he was on CNN saying Latinx.
Point being, the thing that matters is that the intent is to be respectful. Using the wrong word to offend makes you an asshole, and it doesn’t matter if you’re misgendering someone or denigrating an entire ethnicity. Using the wrong word because it’s ambiguous, or it’s traditional, or you’re not sure is a different matter. Most words were wrong at some point, because language changes. The point is that you treat other humans as people, and not as political targets.
Sure. 93+% of the others who have weighed in against it don’t matter. Only Leguizamo.
Let me state it clearly: most of us do not like it.
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/11/901398248/hispanic-latino-or-latinx-survey-says
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/us/latinx-gallup-poll-preference-trnd/index.html
Way to miss the point. None of this is news to me, and prescriptivism is a losing argument. I personally despise the term Latinx–just like I despiss Mx. I wouldn’t default to either. But I’ll call anyone whatever they prefer. If you want to doggedly refuse to accommodate someone just because their preference puts them in a minority, who are you actually helping?
I do not refuse to address people on their preferences. I do believe the conversation about the topic, in general, has gone well beyond what I would consider reasonable.
That’s my point in linking the surveys: for some reason “Latinx” is still being used despite how reviled it is by our community.
Use latine instead
But I’m in Spain. People here are not Latinos or Latinas :)
Hot take: gendered language doesn’t serve any meaningful purpose and we should just get rid of it. There is no need for inanimate non-gendered objects to have a linguistic gender.
Hot take: person who only speaks English thinks everyone should just speak English.
It’s still entirely non-standard, and not explicitly protected under law.
By all means, push the bounds; and I would hope you establish legal precedent. However, there is little that offers prior circumstance; you are still arguing how things should be, rather than how things are right now. Because of that, courts are not a sufficient venue, it must be argued at the political level.
I agree that Mx is made up bullshit, much like “Latinx” is nonsense in Spanish, but the law does not make any such distinction. You cannot be discriminated against in your job based on your sexual identity, even if you identified as an Apache helicopter (“oh yes daddy, let me fuck you in your missile tubes” - “hah, as if you’d even touch the sides”).
Boy do I have bad news for you about every other word that exists in every single language. There is no word tree we harvest fresh ripe new words from, everything is made up. We are just meat squirting air through our various holes because we like the sounds they make and wish to communicate thought.
Something being made up doesn’t make it bullshit, but something made up by a tiny minority within a minority expecting everyone else to adopt it certainly does.
Is it really so hard to respect a person enough to address them with the courtesy title they ask you to use? Are you in any way inconvenienced by saying “Hello Mx. TWeaK, how are you today”?
No, but unless someone tells me that they want to be referred to as “Mx” I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean - neither should they be vilified for coming up with a personal definition that suits them better.
It’s a two way street. You’re free to be yourself and to stand out from the crowd, but doing so naturally invites inquesition. Such inquesition is not inherently malicious, even if malicious people are more likely to ask questions.
The reasonable ground is somewhere in between. Noisy people on either side demand that they be seen as right, but the fact is they’re both an insignificant minority with an unobjective opinion. One minority is smaller and more vulnerable, and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.
Question: “I shouldn’t be expected to assume that. Furthermore, when they tell me and my natural response is “Huh?” I shouldn’t be vilified for not knowing what they mean”
Who has ever done this to you. Ever. Who have you met that asked you to address them in a specific way then got pissy at you over it? I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but neither me nor anyone I know nor anyone who knows a person I know has ever had this happen to them.
Also: “and that should be taken into consideration, but that doesn’t mean everything they say is right.”
How can someone be wrong about the courtesy title that they choose to use? Like the entire concept and name ‘courtesy title’ make it pretty clear what they are about.
No one. At the same time, people here seem to be getting a little pissy over the thought of asking the question or not immediately accepting any answer - hence my statement in clarification. My statement is confined to the hypotheticals in our conversation, dismissing them out of hand would be hypocritical.
First, my statement that it “doesn’t mean everything they say is right” is meant to cover extreme limits, it doesn’t explicitly refer to things we’ve said but things that could potentially be extrapolated from that. I’m trying to form a concise statement that covers as much as possible.
Second, using a “courtesty title” and even people accepting that does not mean the courtesy title is not “made up bullshit”. People accept bullshit all the time - just look at Trump supporters. It’s only when the made up idea is accepted by a critical mass that it ceases to be bullshit; and even then, it could still be reasonably labelled as bullshit, particularly if it doesn’t have a logical origin.
Maybe “Mx.” as an abbreviation for “Mix” has some logical origin, but at the same time it doesn’t really fit in line with “Mister, Miss, Missus”, and it certainly isn’t established like those terms are nor is it immediately apparent what the abbreviation is short for.
Some measure of rejection should be expected when you’re asking people to adapt their native language to suit yourself. Your personal expression should not dictate how others express themselves in communication; communicating is a mutual process between people, without an agreement on terminology things are neither right nor wrong, it’s all just made up bullshit until we agree - and even then…
Like “mix”. It’s fairly simple to most people who have common sense and aren’t actively trying to be offended over nothing.
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”Good morning, I am Mx. Vary, your science teacher." That’s it, that’s all you need for the entire year.
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Do your classes take place entirely over text? They’re asking how you pronounce that in speech.
Mr. Is short for “Mister” Mrs is short for mistress, but is usually pronounced “Misses”
So how does one pronounce Mx.? Mix or Mixter? Mixes? And sometimes Xs are pronounced like Z, so is it just Mmmz?
Asking how to pronounce someone’s preferred pronouns is entirely reasonable when their preferred pronoun is not a regular part of the English language. I’d rather know how to say something and not offend someone than say it wrong for who knows how long and definitely offend them.
If they’re saying it, they just told you how to pronounce it. That’s my point.
Yeah, but I’m trying to learn for myself, and have never had anyone say it to me.
So you’re not really helping by assuming I should know how to pronounce a new word
Okay, but like, if you were in their class you would hear them say it to you and then you’d know.
If you actually cared you’d just look it up tbh.
I’m not assuming you would know. Nobody is. If they’re introducing themselves, that’s how you would know. If you are a third party and want to learn for yourself, there is a very easy way to do that.
Your version of “common sense” in this situation only applies to a small minority that naturally extrapolates beyond the meaning of the statement alone.
“Mx.” as a prefix is not in any way established in common vernacular, nor does it easily make sense unless you assume they’re doing something specific that most people don’t do.
However, the law says that anyone is free to do so as they please; you can sexually identify in any way and must not be discriminated against for that in terms of your employment.
It’s not “fairly simple if you have common sense”. The known abbreviations have been in use for a hundred or more years and are widely known. Everyone knows how to pronounce them, the only curveball is Mrs being misses since it was originallymistress but that word later became associated with cheating and “ladies of the night”.
Mx was made up recently, it stands for nothing AFAIK. They just took the standard M beginning and slapped X on it because X tends to mean “unknown”.
It’s akin to asking you to address me as “Zf. Cat” because that’s what makes me feel comfortable.
Ok, Zf. Cat :) If that makes you feel comfortable it costs me nothing to be considerate of your preference. See?
Now you have to remember that for every interaction with me. If you happen to call me sometime else, I’ll grit my teeth and have to correct you or if I’m an asshole, I’ll berate you about it, constantly. You will also have to refer to me as Zf. Cat to everyone you know, regardless of whether or not they know me, or are in my presence.
You should be asking yourself why you assume the person would react angrily instead of just politely correcting the pronunciation. If someone accidentally mispronounces my name I gently correct them, while smiling, and I have never once been offended or take it personally. You also assume it is a heavy burden on others to simply call people what they’d like to be called. When it is not. Being angry over this is not a healthy attitude. It’s simple manners to be considerate of others and that is precisely what the person is asking for, nothing more.
If you have to correct someone about your name/title every single time it gets pretty damn annoying. I met a girl years ago whose name was spelled Remy but pronounced Ray-me she said “I hate my parents for it” (I doubt she actually hated her parents, but hated the fact that they gave her a “bad” name).
Except it’s not like that at all, because you just made that honorific up!
Mx. has an actual cultural context outside of their classroom. Sure, it’s new, but it’s not like this teacher just made it up themselves.
What is that context? You failed to include it.
The context is Mx. already being used and recognized around the country and around the world. It’s new, but it’s not just something the teacher made up.
So common sense is dictated now by a few members of niche social media circles?
You’d think someone using the name CaptPretentious would be all in favor of things being made up by niche social circles.
Sorry was I supposed to put my first name, last name, social Security number, and mother’s maiden name as my username?
Well see, common sense would have me ask “hm, how do I say that?” then google it, then when I see that it’s simply pronounced “mix” I’d say “oh, okay”. And then go on about my day… instead of ranting about how hard it is to figure out and how angry it should make everyone. But that’s just me.
If it were me, I would probably figure out what the person I’m trying to argue arguing with was actually arguing about. Instead of getting up on a soapbox and pretending like I know what I’m arguing about. But that would take effort.
But you keep using those canned responses you got ready to go.
Wow, those two letters really shook you. Deep breaths.
My position has fuck all to do with the letters.
But you really need it to be don’t you. Because your canned responses only work if that’s what I’m arguing about.