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A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

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Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#41

Post by leetcrew »

reader5000 wrote: post #35
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

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 purpose…

> 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.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#42

Post by code_duck »

mywittyname wrote: post #30
graedus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard or seen it until this moment.

I've not heard "tifty" but I've definitely heard the phrase, it's pretty widely used among people under 25 in the midwest.

The phrase 'thanks for the invite', of course. The acronym TFTI, no, and pronouncing it as 'tifty' or verbalizing the term at all, no.

Of course, all this means is that TFTI is an acronym, which are added to language all the time.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#43

Post by bluedino »

enriquto wrote: post #37
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

I find the usage of the word "latin" in the U.S. rather amusing, because they awkwardly use it to refer to people of non-european heritage... as an european, for me it is synonymous with "ancient roman".

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#44

Post by enriquto »

bluedino wrote: post #43
enriquto wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the usage of the word "latin" in the U.S. rather amusing, because they awkwardly use it to refer to people of non-european heritage... as an european, for me it is synonymous with "ancient roman".

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#45

Post by mieseratte »

enriquto wrote: post #44
bluedino wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

An American would refer to them as Canadian, French-Canadian, or Québécois if you're feeling fancy.

We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America though I'm not quite sure what the underlying difference is.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#46

Post by narvval »

enriquto wrote: post #44
bluedino wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

I wonder what the argument of the people who downvoted you would be?

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#47

Post by bluedino »

mieseratte wrote: post #45
enriquto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

An American would refer to them as Canadian, French-Canadian, or Québécois if you're feeling fancy. We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America though I'm not quite sure what the underlying difference is.

Hispanic is 'from Spain', so Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rico...however it's often used interchangeably with Latino.

There's also Chicano which means from Mexico.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#48

Post by skywhopper »

enriquto wrote: post #44
bluedino wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

Language and nomenclature does not develop rationally. It's fair to point out that you find it jarring, but it's so embedded in the western hemisphere that your appeals to sense aren't going to change anything.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#49

Post by skywhopper »

narvval wrote: post #46
enriquto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

I wonder what the argument of the people who downvoted you would be?

Saying "LOL... it makes no sense" about the label self-applied by people in a culture you aren't familiar with doesn't add anything to the conversation, and it comes across as rude and dismissive. You don't need to type everything that comes into your head into Hacker News.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#50

Post by skywhopper »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

Try googling "why latinx" and reading up on it. It's deeper than just gender-neutrality, and it's not just about being "sensical". Some here will dismiss it because there are political aspects to the choice. But I assume most people who comment on Hacker News under self-determined pseudonyms can respect the desire and the right of people to come up with labels for referring to themselves that make sense to them, whatever the reason is.
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