Chiquill@

Chiquill@
 

What is the difference between that and chic@?

First, there is no letter in Spanish that is represented by "@"

I know it seems OK to use it, but really it isn't.

Chico/chica chiquillo/chiquilla chicuelo/chicuela all are the same, but chico/chica is used when talking for example about your boyfriend/girlfriend and chiquillo/chiquilla is more used for son/daughter.

It depends on the country etc...

No te preocupás. Nunca lo uso en papeles formales, sólamente uso en foros en la Web.

The at sign (@) is called una arroba in Spanish, so I provided the correct direct object pronouns above, as well as other corrections. :)

Gracias. ¿Cuál forma es eso? ¿Subjuntivo? He creío que el verbo era "preocuparse".

No te preocupes [Preocupés is non standard voseo, and it's familiar. If you told me "no te preocupés" I would probably reply "Cool it!". You can use it with "che" -and face what may come-]

"preocupes" is present subjunctive; in this case, the negative form of imperative.

No te preocupas = You don't care
No te preocupes = Don't worry

"Don't worry" is a negative command, so the negative imperative mood is used. You used the negated present indicative and the voseo form.

There is more than way to form the voseo negative imperative. I wrote it the way it the way I heard it used in Central America.

More Information. In this article, you'll see that '(Vos) No cerrés tus ojos' is used in Guatemala. I'm thinking AlecCowan would use '(Vos) No cierres tus ojos'.

I just want to add that I have seen people posting in professional forums/listserves who will occasionally use "@" because they want to intentionally avoid saying something like "Estimados colegas..." so they write "Estimad@s colegas....". I know it's not necessarily acceptable here, nor is it absolutely correct grammar. But I have definitely seen it used by professional and educated people........

Sí, el lenguaje se está volviendo cada vez más sexista y/o erotizado.

And if a Central American said that to you?

So are you saying it would sound rude to say that in Argentina?

Truth is that it would be used like in English. Depends on the context used.


"Don't (you) worry"

It can be used without the intention of being dense, as well as the other way around.

Right?

No one has done it and I don't think they'd do.

It's not what you say but to whom and in what circumstances.

Lazy people.
Some of us were taught in school that when we would want to underline the inclusion of feminine and masculine, we should write "niño(a)", "amigo(a)", "estimados(as)", "chicos(as)"...
Habemos los(as) que abominamos de esa "@" para abreviar. ;)

Ugh. :yuck: That looks very unaesthetic and distracting. I don't like that at all.

but that is the polite way to spell

I thought the -os forms already included the feminine, so isn't it kind of redundant? To me it looks as ugly as writing "he/she" in English. It makes reading something almost impossible.

There is no neutral gender in Spanish and masculine forms play that role, but when there is need (or will) to underline the inclusion of both feminine and masculine elements in a group, "@" is not acceptable for a correct sentence.