{"id":148702,"date":"2020-03-06T16:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T23:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=148702"},"modified":"2020-03-06T17:15:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T00:15:16","slug":"degendering-a-gendered-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/06\/degendering-a-gendered-language.html","title":{"rendered":"Degendering a gendered language"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I know that the term &#8220;Latinx&#8221; is meant to be pronounced &#8220;La-teen-ex,&#8221; but given it doesn&#8217;t crop up much in spoken conversation around me, my brain tends to read it as &#8220;La-tinks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I know that the term &quot;Latinx&quot; is meant to be pronounced &quot;La-teen-ex,&quot; but given it doesn&#39;t crop up much in spoken conversation around me, my brain tends to read it as &quot;La-tinks&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>I do think it&#39;s a cool neologism, though. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Z77tiCwc07\">pic.twitter.com\/Z77tiCwc07<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Three_Star_Dave\/status\/1236064181457170434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 6, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I still think it&#8217;s a cool neologism, though. The Boy has been learning Italian and Latin in college, and is being thrown a curve by the gendered nature of those languages. Just as in English we&#8217;ve been tackling gendered aspects of our own tongue, languages built around gendered nows (and then verbs and other parts of speech that have to echo them) often incorporate sexual bias and traditional expectations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Latinx&#8221; is an effort at a collective noun that, unlike &#8220;Latino,&#8221; doesn&#8217;t seem to exclude half the people involved.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you want to know more?\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/latino\/latinx-elitist-some-push-back-word-s-growing-use-n957036\">History of the term and push-back on it from some quarters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a collective noun is fundamentally masculine, how do you include women in it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78,348,24,8],"tags":[1482,723],"class_list":["post-148702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tweets","category-women","category-writing-and-language","category-zt-pc","tag-language","tag-nt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129166,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/17\/on-the-singular-they.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":0},"title":"On the Singular &quot;They&quot;","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Dec-15 8:55pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I confess, over this last year I've started using \"they\" as an indefinitely-gendered singular pronoun (e.g., \"A student entered the room, went the front, and handed the professor their term paper.\") I'd have preferred an actual word be invented for the role, but that's never gotten any serious traction,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1280,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/02\/01\/narcissus.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":1},"title":"Narcissus","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Feb-02 9:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A Scottish psych experiment found that folks rated trans-gendered versions of themselves as highly attractive. The images were doctored with \"morphing\" technology to show male versions of female subjects and...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fourth Estate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134917,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/04\/happy-hispanic-latino-latinx-history-heritage-kinda-month.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":2},"title":"Happy Hispanic-Latino-Latinx-History Heritage Kinda-Month!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 4-Oct-17 10:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"An amusing video looking at the mid-month to mid-month celebration of Hispanic History (or maybe Heritage), or maybe it's Latino History, unless one is being gender neutral with Latinx, or has a US regional preference for Hispanic vs Latino, or is being pedantically proper about the difference between \"Hispanic\" (of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Race-Labels1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Race-Labels1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Race-Labels1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Race-Labels1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":127497,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/12\/boys-will-be-boys-and-girls-girls-and-their-toys-um-well.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":3},"title":"Boys will be boys (and girls girls (and their toys &#8230; um, well &#8230;)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Aug-15 2:11am","format":false,"excerpt":"Are more girls than boys going to choose Barbies? Yeah, probably.Are more boys than girls going to choose toy guns (do they still sell toy guns?)? Probably so.So, then, why the concern if they aren't explicitly labeled as \"boy toys\" vs \"girl toys\"?And if a girl wants some Marvel action\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128243,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/06\/looking-for-a-gender-neutral-unmanned-alternative-for-space-flight.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":4},"title":"Looking for a gender-neutral &quot;unmanned&quot; alternative for space flight","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Oct-15 1:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Since we've culturally decided that \"man\" no longer serves as a contemporary synonym for \"humanity,\" the term \"unmanned\" almost certainly needs to be retired -- but apparently that's kind of complicated.The best, most accurate alternative I see from this article is \"uncrewed,\" which is precise, non-gendered, and similar enough to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1405,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/11\/on_the_fringe_a.html","url_meta":{"origin":148702,"position":5},"title":"On the fringe, as usual","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Jan-02 2:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Women are by far the biggest readers of fiction (and are significantly bigger readers than men, overall). And, as a result, writers and publishers are beginning to focus more on...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media Moguls&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148707,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148702\/revisions\/148707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}