Dartmouth Students Storm President's Offices, Seriousness of Demands Unclear

[Associate Justice PiT]

Wait, why did they say "Latin@"? What does that even mean?

@ has elements of both an 'a' and an 'o' in the way it looks so it's intended to be a (sadly unpronounceable) gender-neutral shorthand for situations where for whatever reason people don't want to use the word 'Hispanic'. I'm seeing it more and more often these days.

Huh. I only see the a, thus defeating the purpose. Can't they just say Latino/a?

Are they seriously that anal over being as non offensive as possible that they want gender neutral spelling with symbols, and not letters???

The irony is that in Spanish, the male pronoun is always used when dealing with mixed genders or an unknown gender. A group of male and female Hispanic Americans is always going to be referred to as Latinos. So in their ham-handed attempt to be politically correct, they willfully disregarded another culture's linguistic conventions. RACISTS!

That reminds me of my reaction when seeing a "alumni/ae" hall in our journalism school. My cringing reminded me that the Latinophone in me was not yet fully dead... By the way, what's the problem with "Hispanic"?

Averroes, I'm thinking the ones with six figure salaries will be the ones who tried to speak in defense of the administration.

I just get annoyed when 99% of people say "I am an alumni of XYZ University" as opposed to an alumnus/alumna.

     It annoys me too. These people are allegedly educated, and yet their grasp of language and its use is execrable. Most of them probably couldn't even identify the origin of that word.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It annoys me too. These people are allegedly educated, and yet their grasp of language and its use is execrable. Most of them probably couldn't even identify the origin of that word.

Yis, hou darth peple not stiketh to thi originale Latin formes whanne writinge English! We wolde al duse welle to writen iliche Chaucer.

     If we have to undertake some kind of language reform, I would probably opt for a return to Middle English, for the sheer absurdity of it. Write with thorns and such.

It annoys me too. These people are allegedly educated, and yet their grasp of language and its use is execrable. Most of them probably couldn't even identify the origin of that word.

Let's talk about the use of "they" as a singular pronoun... that's a permutation I don't mind.

     Considering that the words for "he" and "they" (general "they", though there is a feminine "they" that is a homophone with "she") are homophones in French and the words for "she" and "they" are homophones in German, I rather like the idea of a third-person singular "they" in English. It would bring us more in line with our closest linguistic relatives.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It annoys me too. These people are allegedly educated, and yet their grasp of language and its use is execrable. Most of them probably couldn't even identify the origin of that word.

Oy vey. I thought you believed in science...

I believe you misread his post (I read "word" as "world" too), unless I'm missing something here.

Nah. Basically, whining about people using "alumni" instead of alumnus or whatever, and then claiming that they have a poor grasp of English basically violates the established tenets of linguistics.

     So should I complain about them having a poor grasp of Latin? I'll be happy to go that route instead.