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this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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It’s also an older American colloquialism to describe people from the Spanish-speaking world. They’re not wrong, just a little behind on linguistic changes. Just imagine “Hispanophone” when they say “Spanish”; that’s what is meant in most cases.
(To be clear, I’m not telling you not to be offended if you’re from the Spanish-speaking world. I’m simply explaining that it’s a colloquialism, not a mistake or an attempt at offense.)
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Is this like the "female" thing?
So this is honestly the first time I've heard that using "spanish" for Hispanic people (as opposed to "Spanish" i.e. people from Spain) is in any way offensive. I can't remember hearing Hispanic people use it themselves, so maybe you're right on this and I am the wrong one.
By way of comparison, what's your stance on the offensiveness level of "Latinx"?
Spanish-speaking is better. Just "Spanish" is weird. Many folks from Mexico and South America don't have any Spanish ancestry, and some people or entire countries don't even speak Spanish as their main language. To reduce everyone who lives on one giant continent to the name of a conquering nation that tried to take them over is, yeah, a little offensive.
Yeah, I get that. Point taken.
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Well, but you do know that there's a slang term "spanish" with the little s, which means Hispanic, right? It's the same as "black" people aren't colored #000000, "you up?" doesn't mean anything about your verticality, etc. The decision that certain slang terms are incorrect because you've frozen what the language means at a certain point and no one's permitted to apply something in a way that's different than that to accomplish the purpose of communication, is not to me a sensible endeavor.
Urban Dictionary seems to take issue with using "spanish" in this way, and like I say in my experience people of this ethnicity tend to identify with their particular country of origin, so maybe I am the wrong one. It honestly just never crossed my mind. I don't agree in general with "you're not allowed to use word X because we've decided that it's not allowed," and I definitely don't agree with avoiding slang simply because it's slang and slang's not allowed.
Last thoughts on the offensiveness front; I think "Latinx" is a perfect example of people coming up with weird rules and trying to get other people to follow them even though there's no productive purpose to it and all it does is irritate people (including the ethnic grouping that's supposedly being protected). I do think this happens, hence why I also bring up "female." I honestly don't know whether "spanish" falls into that category, or is not at all offensive and I'm just creating this whole issue from nothing, or is genuinely mildly offensive.