This is an excerpt from English Studies (2026) by Elia Kazan, now available.

A quick lesson on language precision

They may have overlap, such as a Venn Diagram. It may also help to think of the concept “continuum” which is a gradient.

Race

Social construct (mental framework) based on phenotypes (superficial adaptations), genes, ancestry, but still same “Homo sapiens”

Ethnicity

Ancestry, culture, heritage, language

Dear King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup. Ends at Homo sapiens. No further biological “sub-species” which racism of the past used to suggest.

Culture

General way of living. Education, Music, Language

Tradition

Specific ways of doing these things: Literature (short story, novels, etc.), haiku, fable, country music 

Class

You attended today’s class. Not “I am attending today’s course.” 

Course

You pass the course after a semester of work. 

Gender

A person’s internal sense of being a man or woman. It has been broadened to include identities outside of that binary (transgender, nonbinary, agender, bigender). Population-based demographic studies and meta-analyses establish that approximately 99–99.5% of individuals identify as cisgender (identifying gender with one’s sex). Gender minorities thus comprise roughly 0.5% to 1% of the adult population. See Meerwijk, E. L., & Sevelius, J. M. (2017). Transgender population size in the United States: A meta-regression of population-based probability samples. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), e1–e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303578

Gender Expression

One’s external manifestation of their gender through behavior, mannerisms, clothing, etc. 

Sex

One’s biological anatomy. Born with male or female organs, or in some rare medical instances, differences or disorders of sex development.

Sexual Orientation

Approximately 5% to 10% of the general population identifies as non-heterosexual (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer), though the exact percentage varies depending on how the question is asked, whether by self-identity, sexual attraction, or lifetime sexual behavior. See Jones, Jeffrey M. 2023. “LGBT Identification in U.S. Reaches 7.2%.” Gallup News. (Reflecting multi-year peer-reviewed tracking methodologies published via Gallup’s demographic data analytics). https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-reach-7.2.aspx

Loneliness

Unhealthy due to chronic isolation.

Solitude

Healthy for self-construction but need not be overdone or can turn to loneliness. 

Fast

Quick

Run

Jog

Hispanic

Anyone speaking Spanish as their primary cultural language

Latin America, or culture

This region runs from Mexico (which actually a part of North America) to Cape Horn (bottom of Argentina).

Romance languages

Latin based: French, Spanish, Italian

English is both West Germanic foundational (core grammar and sentence structure) but plus a lot of French words (Latin)

West Germanic: German, English, Dutch, Scots

North Germanic: Scandinavian languages 

Slavic: Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian

Celtic: Scottish Gaelic (also called Gaelic)