DETAILS OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE

There are details (or rules) of the SPANISH language that we must consider and respect in the writings or speeches that reach all public, especially those that are available to those in the early stages of their education, in order not to fall into errors, excesses or confusions.

One of these DETAILS is the incorrect and unnecessary use of both genders, masculine and feminine, to refer to the PLURAL of a mixed group of people, for example: boys and girls "niños y niñas", men teachers and women teachers, gentleman Venezuelan and ladies Venezuelan. However, it is currently a very fashionable recurring failure in the field of national policy.

As we know, in our language, the PLURAL MALE implies both genders. The generic use of masculine is based on its condition of unmarked term and no discriminatory intention should be seen, says the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and, therefore, it is incorrect to mention also the feminine one. Thus, for example, "children" (masculine plural) is the only correct way to refer to a mixed group, although the number of girls (female) is higher than that of boys (male).

Much less is it allowed to use the feminine plural to allude jointly to both sexes, independently of the number of individuals of each sex that are part of the group, that is to say, thus they are more feminine than masculine.

Saying both genders is correct, ONLY when the masculine and the feminine are different words, for example: "women and men", "ladies and gentlemen", etc.

One of the most recent inventions of the stubborn of the language is the use of the symbol of the arroba (@) to refer to an inclusive plural, such as: 'Day of the child', 'l @ s niñ @ s'. The RAE says that the arroba is not a linguistic sign and therefore its use is inadmissible. Let's notice that in 'Children's Day' the contraction 'of' is only valid for the male child.

Nowadays we speak by microphone and we write laws lightly, without a real knowledge of the language, without even consulting the dictionary, distorting the language blatantly, excusing ourselves with what they call "inclusive language". And, what is worse, there are no sanctions, neither for speaking badly nor for writing incorrectly.

As a final message, it must be the task of all of us, the Spanish speakers, to make good use of our beautiful Spanish language.