Britain is a rich country and may fare better than others. But the N.H.S. is creaking at the seams after years of underfunding [my bolding]. A decade of cuts by successive Conservative governments has stripped the service of resources. Staff morale is low and retention is poor. We are already working at capacity.
(Jessica Potter, “I’m a Doctor in Britain. We’re Heading Into the Abyss,” NYTimes, 3-18-20)
I live in a state that’s been cherry-red since Ann Richards was defeated by ‘W’ in 1994. “Creaking at the seams after years of underfunding” is an apt descriptor for the Texas healthcare system, and indeed for the U.S. system in general. True to form, the Grand Old Party has striven mightily to splay, flay, and fillet Obamacare from the very day of its enactment, down to the present moment.
One of my projects for the new era of isolation and social distancing we live in is to research why efficient, equitable, well-functioning, robust public healthcare systems appear to be anathema to white conservatives in two “advanced” countries.
Related topic to explore: Why do conservatives such as Drew Pinsky, Rob Schneider, Sean Hannity, Sharyl Attkison, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Ron Paul scoff in various ways at the virus scare?
“This is not affecting people who are healthy,” Mr. Schneider said, falsely.
(Jeremy W. Peters, “From Jerry Falwell Jr. to Dr. Drew: 5 Coronavirus Doubters,” NYTimes, 3-18-30)
(c) 2020 JMN
EthicalDative 
Latinx Redux
Dr. García Peña has been involved in… the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures’ program in Latinx studies [my bolding]. (Latinx is a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage, used commonly in academia.)
(Kate Taylor, “Denying a Professor Tenure, Harvard Sparks a Debate Over Ethnic Studies,” NYTimes, 1-2-20)
Ms. Taylor helpfully clarifies “Latinx” in her parentheses, since it’s not likely to be on everyone’s tongue. I’ve confessed before how the term nettles me; hence “redux” in the title.
Linguistically, the striving for gender freedom in woke English can collide with the ineradicable genderedness of other languages. Ecce “Latinx.”
In assimilating “Latino,” a Spanish word, English inherited the word’s masculine gender marking. Absent that marking we get “Latin,” which is native and has its uses — indeed had considerable currency in the past, along with “Hispanic,” for labeling persons of, or descended from, Spanish-speaking cultures of the Americas and Caribbean. (The proverbial “Latin lover” was not a man who cherished the orations of Cicero. He was Latinx!)
Grammatical gender follows no discernible logic. In Spanish, it ranges from la mujer (woman) and el hombre (man) to la gente (people); el pueblo (town); la sociedad (society); el ambiente (atmosphere); el mapa (map); la luz (light); el tema (theme); la catástrofe (catastrophe); el cutis (skin); la piel (skin, too); el imperio (empire); la soberanía (sovereignty); and so on.
No noun in Spanish lacks gender. Articles, as well as adjectives that are themselves susceptible to gender marking, must agree with the noun’s gender (not to mention its number). “Agree with” in grammar-talk means to adopt appropriate markings: la pared pintada (the painted wall); el vidrio pintado (the painted glass); los dibujos pintados (the painted drawings); las nubes pintadas (the painted clouds).
To import a Spanish word into English is to import its gender baggage in one form or the other: masculine or feminine — “Latino” vs “Latina.” X-ing the gender suffix creates a scratchy neologism. Perhaps “Latinx” will catch on outside ivied precincts; perhaps not.
My pickiest beef with “Latinx” concerns its combination with “studies.” I suggest that the phrase it replaces — “Latino studies” — does not mean the study of Latinx-ers who are male. (It would require the sister discipline: “Latina studies.”) Rather, “Latino” classifies that discipline whose subjects are the peoples and cultures of the Spanish-speaking Americas — just as “Bible studies” are not the study of physical Bibles, but of the biblical canon in all its aspects.
But never mind; the distinction is academic.
(c) 2020 JMN