Q&A: “Have you figured anything out about “folx” since then?”

anonymous said:

I already follow you on tumblr and when I googled why people use folx instead of folks I was redirected to you! that’s cool…but in that ask you answered in 2015 you weren’t completely sure why folx was needed when “folks” is already gender neutral – that’s where I am as well. Have you figured anything out about “folx” since then?

i’m guessing that [ this ] is the post that Google directed you to, but i wonder if you also saw [ the post ] that followed that one?

since those posts in 2015, i can quite literally count on one hand the number of times i’ve come across usage of “folx” outside of Twitter, where it’s used quite commonly. i’ve personally come to the conclusion that while there may be people who use it for gender-related reasons, more often than not “folx” seems to be used exclusively on the internet as a form of internet speak / slang in the same vein as “thx” meaning “thanks”, “sux” meaning “sucks” and “rox” meaning “rocks” etc for reasons that often boil down to #BecauseInternet and / or character limitations.

that said, i’m curious as to what had you googling “folx” in the first place. care to share, anon?

the linguist in me would love to delve into corpus linguistics and research this word and its usage for no reason other than it being fun to do so, but alas, i haven’t the time nor the energy right now…