Language Puzzles

I’m an old fart now, so the inevitable changes happening to the English language are puzzling me.

When did “gift” become a verb that replaced “give”, except that it has to be used with “with”? Example: I gifted my three-year-old with a new iPhone.

When did “peak” become a verb that replaced “pique”? Example: the new iPhone has really peaked my three-year-old’s interest.

Why do we have to capitalize “Black” and “White” now? They’re not location-based ethnicities, like Asian or African.

Why do we have to say “African-American” instead of “black”?

Speaking of which, is Elon Musk an African-American? He’s from South Africa, but he’s not black.

Why isn’t “people of color” as offensive as “colored people”?

Why is “Black Lives Matter” good, but “All Lives Matter” is racist?

Why do we have to say “Native American” instead of “Indian”, when the Indians generally prefer to call themselves Indians?

How do you pronounces “Latinx”? Is it Latin-X or La-Tinks?

Speaking of which, why are English speakers trying to de-genderize gendered languages like Spanish? Did they ask Spanish speakers if they liked this idea? Are we going to have to do the same thing for other gendered languages like German and Russian? Russian doesn’t even have an “x” letter like the English “x” (yes, I know they have a letter that’s written like an “x” but it’s pronounced “kh”, approximately).

When did “toe the line” become “tow the line”? How do you tow a line, anyway?

When did “as for” become “as far as”? Example: As far as the iPhone, it has peaked my three-year-old’s interest.

When did the possessive of “it” become “it’s”? Its not making any sense to me.

When did “literally” come to mean the same as its opposite, “figuratively”? Examples: Trump is literally Hitler; I literally died when Trump won.

I’m not even going to try to figure out the whole pronoun thing. Wouldn’t it be easier to refer to people by their actual names?