[General] Usage

[Joliee]

Does anyone think there is some problem with:

"Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1838822 persons."
"Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 48% of the population."

 

[5jj]

What does "Hispanics or Latinos of any race" mean?

 

[Joliee]

A Hispanic or Latino is, loosely defined, someone from South America.

 

[Joliee]

Actually, I wanted to focus on the red part:

"Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1838822 persons."

Let me try talking about the racial makeup of a city of 1000 people, with 600 Caucasians:

"Caucasians were 600 people."
"Caucasians were 60% of the population."

The first sentence seems "stiff". I might be wrong.

 

[5jj]

The first sentence is very unnatural. We'd say simply,"There were 600 caucasians". The second is better, though I would use 'made up' rather than 'were'.

 

[emsr2d2]

Actually, I wanted to focus on the red part:

"Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1838822 persons."

Let me try talking about the racial makeup of a city of 1000 people, with 600 Caucasians:

"Caucasians were 600 people."
"Caucasians were 60% of the population."

The first sentence seems "stiff". I might be wrong.

With your first sentence, it would be fine if you reversed the order:

600 people were caucasian.

Other suggestions:

Caucasians made up 60% of the population.
Of the 1000 inhabitants of the city, 600 were caucasian.
60% of the city's population were caucasian.

 

[Barb_D]

There were 1,838,822 Hispanics or Latinos.