Back in September, we talked about the influence of Spanish on U.S. English and its growing

prevalence as an unofficial second language in this country.

But what do we call people of Hispanic or Latin American descent?

Hispanic, Latino, Latina?

What about new terms like Latin X, L-A-T-I-N-X,

and Latine-L-A-T-I-N-X and Latine-L-A-T-I-E.

Well, first, out of respect, we should refer to people by the terms they prefer.

But let's talk about the history and usage of these different

ways to refer to those of Hispanic or Latin American descent.

Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fog Fog, your friendly guide to the English

language. Stick around because after we go through this interesting segment by

Susan Herman, I'll talk about why some people

object to the phrases grow your business and grow smaller.

We'll start with the term Hispanic, Espano in Spanish. This term is about

language so it's used to refer to people from Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain and Latin America, but not Brazil,

where Portuguese is the main language.

Hispanic generally refers to people in the U.S. history.com it was first used by the US

government in the 1980 census. At that time the National Council of LaRaza

now known as Unidos U.S., lobbied the government

to adopt the term for the census as a way to develop a common agenda for the community. In the 1990s, Hispanic began to gain popularity,

particularly in Spanish language media like Telemundo and Univision,

which benefited from a United market.

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