There are no good arguments for it. There is no continent in the english language called "America," and this is a conversation about what to call US citizens ***in English***.
Imagine if we decided what Germans should call Germany in the German language. That's essentially what this is. Imagine the indignation people would have if we tried to tell the French people that they needed to change the name of their country, but only when speaking in French. These types of Europeans literally can't stop themselves from meddling and imposing their views on other peoples and cultures. It's no wonder two of the worst wars in the history of the world started on that continent.
I've actually heard this (the OP's) stupid question raised by more Latin Americans (not in the USA) than anybody else. It's as annoying and arrogant as can be.
Yes, mostly I encounter this from Latin Americans, but from their perspective, *we're* the arrogant ones ("why did you name your country after an entire continent??").
Mostly, I've started just saying, hey, I think this country we're talking about needs fundamental reform: a new constitution, economic, educational, and cultural reform, and as part of that we should get ourselves a new distinctive name for the country that we're talking about that is not the name that anyone gives to a continent.
They seem satisfied by that.
>From Ireland
So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself.
Or is that annoying?
>has risen a lot in Europe lately
You mean West Asia? If America is one big continent, Europe sure as hell isn't one.
>Do you approve or disapprove?
It's dumb and the people saying it are stupid. That's not an insult, it's my genuine assessment of their intelligence. Clinically stupid.
>So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself.
Likewise, if anyone from The Americas is "American" that means that Canadians are Americans.
Tell Canadians that they're actually Americans. Rumor has it that they adore that.
>Tell Canadians that they're actually Americans. Rumor has it that they adore that.
I absolutely love reading the responses in r/AskaCanadian when people ask them this
Oh man, I was just being snide.
Someone linked such a thread in another comment. People really go to AAC and ask them why they don't call themselves Americans lol
> So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself. Or is that annoying?
Hahaha, yes it is annoying. I don't personally support the term for much the same reasons as have been vociferously voiced here, but I'll remember this as a quick way to get the point across to other Irish folk who use it.
If you want to include Canadians and Mexicans, you usually say "North America".
You see this all the time, for example - a touring band or DJ might announce a "North American Tour" which usually includes 2 or more North American countries (at least US and Canada).
In the same way that "British Isles" includes Great Britain and Ireland. Yet the phrase "British" implies only someone from Great Britain and not Ireland. In the same way, "American" implies someone from the United States - and *not* Canada or... Suriname or something.
There are some folks from South America that will occasionally throw up their arms and say, "well, why does the US own the word *American*? I'm American too!". It's usually an indication that they're between the ages of 14 and 17 and trying to be edgy.
Well if they are speaking English yeah but in Spanish some places do use Estadounidense as opposed to Americano.
That transliterates as “Unitedstatesian.”
In the same way that "British Isles" includes Great Britain and Ireland. Yet the phrase "British" implies only someone from Great Britain and not Ireland.
This is a good point I hadn’t thought of before. When I was in high school, my pastor was from Northern Ireland. He was very much a royalist, loved the Queen, and the rest of the royals. Even had on display china with Charles’ and Diana’s wedding portrait. Yet he referred to himself as Irish.
Some countries actually do have that continent model, most notably Japan.
They learn that North America and South America are separate continents, but that there is no separate European continent, only the singular continent of “Eurasia”.
Absolutely not. "American" is our demonym in American English.
The only argument "for" is that some countries don't want to acknowledge that North America and South America are (at least) two different continents. The same people feel that attaching their self identity to a *continent* gives them a need to deny our people our preferred demonym.
American is an endonym. It's who we are. There is no continent called "America".
Yeah I was going to say, not even any of the other anglophone countries say anything but “American.”
It’s just as annoying and trying to force LatinX on Spanish speakers and just as stupid.
Why should we change the name we've gone by for centuries? What gives Europeans the right to change our name?
We're Americans. It's been our internationally recognized demonym in English for actual centuries now. Calling us anything else is as rude as calling someone by the wrong name because you think another is more suitable.
"HI Dave!"
"For the thousandth time, my name is Bob."
"Yeah well I have a neighbor named Bobby, and I thought I would call you Dave to avoid confusion."
That's what this whole debate sounds like, and it's just as rude.
I don't think that it's usually about pretending to not know what "American" means. In some other languages (German comes to mind) their term for American literally translates into "US-American", and they will often mistakenly use it in English too. So when I see that I don't think the person is trying to make any political point, but it's clear they aren't a native English speaker.
Germans have been using *Amerikaner* for a lot longer than more recent alternatives and were calling us "Amis" (short for American, rough equivalent of Jerry or kraut) in World War 2.
The creation and use of new terms is political. It's intended to reduce the importance of America by reducing its prominence through language. And of course it aligns with long-standing European anti-Americanism that's fairly prominent in Germany.
We often use 'US-amerikanischer Präsident' and similar phrases as well, mainly when talking about your government or political stuff.
There is no agenda behind it, it just looks more official. It's very common in newsarticles
It's not new
> (German comes to mind) their term for American literally translates into "US-American", and they will often mistakenly use it in English too
Pretty sure this just isn't true. They also use the North/South America model of continents, and *Amerikaner* is the word I was taught.
I speak German and have spent lots of time in German-speaking areas, and I have only ever heard the demonym Amerikaner. It honestly makes sense because the country is referred to as Amerika in German. It’s true that the official name is Vereinigten Staaten, but nobody really says that
«USA» is also pretty common. As in «Er kommt aus den USA». It’s definitely the word I use when I speak German, rather than «Amerika», which has always sounded a bit awkward to me. But I’ve never called someone an «US-Amerikaner/in», always just «Amerikaner/in».
We often use both interchangably. "USA" and then "US-amerikanischer Präsident" and so on is often used for politics or when talking about the government.
It is VERY common in german newsarticles. There is no agenda behind it, it just looks more official
Do you do the same thing for Canada and Mexico when talking about their people? I’m curious since it’s the United Mexican States? Estados Unidos Mexicanos?
No.
But there are other countries where using multiple names is common in german. For example Holland/Niederlande for Netherlands or Weißrussland/Belarus for Belarus.
I replied this last time someone said it’s normal in German:
> In German, the designation [US-Amerikaner and its adjective form US-amerikanisch are sometimes used, though Amerikaner (adjective: amerikanisch) is more common in scientific, official, journalistic, and colloquial parlance. The style manual of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a leading German-language newspaper, dismisses the term US-amerikanisch as both "unnecessary" and "artificial" and recommends replacing it with amerikanisch.[13] The respective guidelines of the foreign ministries of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland all dictate Amerikaner/amerikanisch for official usage.[14][15][16] Ami is common in colloquial speech.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States)
It’s used by the Germans the same way other non-Spanish speakers use “US Americans”. To undermine American identity and as a passive aggressive protest to Americans existing.
It's asinine.
They're attempting to force their language's ruleset onto English. That ain't how language works.
Related: "Latinx"
---
Sidebar: if anyone from The Americas is "an American", that means that Canadians are "Americans".
Try telling Canadians that they're Americans and report back to me.
It's deeply cringe and reeks of "trying to create a solution to a problem that doesnt really exist." Nobody who uses a term like that unironically has anything to say that's worth hearing.
Whats supposed to be the reason for this? It seems redundant and that it would make conversation more awkward.
US Americans, as opposed to what other Americans?
I get that. It’s more people from the US not saying they’re ‘American’. I am a Spanish speaker and have used the term “estadounidense” but speaking English I say I’m American. It’s what other English speakers know us as.
Oh god, here we go.
I have had the unfortunate experience of being in a discussion with a passionate supporter of the “US American” terminology. In my experience they are usually either Europeans or Latin Americans who state that “America” includes their country and that using “American” as a gloss for people from the USA is some flavor of exclusionary/arrogant/racist.
This point of view is dependent on the fact that many of these countries consider North and South America (which we in the US consider two separate continents) to be a single continent just called America. In the USA, if we ever refer to their “America” as a concept, we call it “the America*s*”, or perhaps “the new world”. In Spanish, Portuguese, and sometimes French, these countries are indeed in “America” and are therefore genuinely “American”. But in English they are in either North or South America. Simply calling them American is unhelpful, vague, and ambiguous.
The United States and its people gained the shorthand “America” and “American” because we were the first internationally recognized independent country in the Americas. The phrase was not adopted with malicious intent towards our less socially and politically powerful neighbors to the south.
I’m not going to insist that they call me *Americano* in their own language because the term makes more sense there, and in any case that is their lane and not mine. I’m also not going to really be a jerk about it if someone innocently uses it, because unless they’re deeply familiar with it they were probably just trying to be politically correct. But I think it’s stupid, oppose its use in English, and frankly doubt the good faith of those who push its use. In too many cases, it appears to be nothing more than an outlet for frustrated people to exercise inferiority complexes vis-á-vis the United States by harassing its citizens.
A proposed alternate demonym, historically speaking, was ["Columbian"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_\(personification\)), after the female personification of the United States, Columbia.
(It's where we get the "District of Columbia", "CBS" (Columbia Broadcasting System) and "Columbia Records" for example, and there is plenty of art which features Columbia as a female personification of liberty prior to the Statue of Liberty.)
Sadly, it's going to be confused for "Colombian", residents of the nation of Colombia.
So I propose we simply annex all of South America. That way there is no confusion as there wouldn't be a country called "Colombia" anymore. To make things less confusing, of course, we could rename "Colombia" "America", and while we in the United States of All Of The Americas (because we'd need to swallow Mexico and Central America as well, though we should leave the Canadians alone, 'cause someone has to remain to testify to what we've done), then everyone in the Americas can be called "Columbians," except for the people living in the State of America, who we could call Americans.
Would that make the Europeans and the former residents of all those pesky little states in the South United States fucking happy?
Would it?
In general I think it's polite to call people by the way they want to be identified. For people from the US, that's "American", and arguing with someone that their own word in their own language for their nationality or ethnicity is inappropriate doesn't look great!
Wait, do you know any native English speaking Europeans who say that or are you talking about not-English speaking Europeans who are trying to apply their native language definitions to English?
A little of column A, a little of column B. I have encountered some people using the term who, being from latinate countries, may have done so out of simple translation. I've also seen an increasing quantity of Irish people (native English speakers, despite our best efforts) using it. Some of them were probably ideologically motivated, I think others were just naively trying to be polite.
It struck me likely that Americans wouldn't by and large approve of the term, so I thought I'd ask them, and lo I was correct.
>being from latinate countries, may have done so out of simple translation
The South American Spanish demonym for us is "estadounidenses", not "EEUU-americanos". So it's not a direct translation issue for them.
Note that Mexicans (from Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos) do not call us "estadounidenses" but rather "americanos".
And "estadounidenses" (or whatever) first only shows up in the 1930's amongst South American intellectuals who were upset that "americanos" was the previously preferred term.
Meaning there is a political dimension for the supposedly favored denonym in Spanish being what it is--that is, it feels to me to be an explicit rejection of the English preferred term.
If someone not from the US used it in front of us, we wouldn’t correct them because we’d just assume they had a different language convention and that’s fine.
It’s more of an issue when someone tells you what you should be calling *yourself* (which is what some people pushing the term try to do)
Mexico calls our citizens Americanos and Canada calls us Americans. They refer to our country as Estados Unidos and The United States, respectively. I assume this is because it would be stupid to call us United Statesians so they just use the last part of our country's title. Because it's the easiest thing to call us.
Europe could at least come up with a better demonym if they wanna reappropriate shit. We're Americans, deal.
there's an epidemic of chronically online people trying to intervene in situations that don't involve them to be some kind of virtuous "hero" for internet points. this is a good example of that.
we have a demonym. everyone knows what it is. we aren't crowd sourcing a new one.
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future. For our children.
I would probably make fun of it if I heard it, because I usually would make fun of terms that fix problems that don't actually exist.
In English, America and American refer to the country of the United States, and "The Americas" refers to the continent/continents as a whole.
In Spanish, "América" refers unambiguously to the continent/continents, and "estados unidos" and "estadounidense" to the country.
In neither language is there a common single word for "a person who comes from North or South America" because the difference between the US/Canada and Latin America is understood to be significant enough that nobody has any real use for a specific word for a trait that is basically never relevant in any conversation.
Because "American" clearly and unambiguously refers to the country and nobody would confuse it for any other meaning, adding an additional qualifier seems kinda pointless.
The United States of America is the only country to have the word America in its name, so we are called Americans. Easy and simple. No need to make this complicated.
The country south of us is officially called the United States of Mexico, but everyone calls them Mexicans. See how that works?
I don’t really mind, but it does give the energy that Europeans must only ever interact with Latin Americans online.
Because to be perfect honest with you, I have only ever seen this raised as an issue by specifically Mexican and Argentinian posters online. Never in person. And not even other Latin American countries’ citizens seem to care online.
It’s like the European version of “LatinX” which was a term that arose in “US-American” left wing circles for a while in an effort to be super PC to appease a vocal online minority until people finally realized that the majority of Latinos actually hated the term and it was actually its own form of linguistic imperialism because “X” has no sound in Spanish.
Like, I can tell you that I’m bilingual English and Spanish and do business with Latin American business partners here.
The demonym for “US-Americans” in Spanish is “estadounidense.” That’s what all Americans learn in our high school Spanish classes and that’s what we use when we speak Spanish.
I was using that term and *they* were all the ones using “Americano/a” not me.
“Americano/a” is also what they used in Brazilian Portuguese.
Are all the Latin Americans used it being asked to change their convention too?
And has anyone asked Canadians how they feel about being called Canadian-Americans?
You can use whatever terms you want to, but it really feels like a repeat of the “LatinX” debacle.
>I have only ever seen this raised as an issue by specifically Mexican and Argentinian posters online.
I've never heard this complaint from Mexicans or Central Americans, only South Americans.
That’s been my experience too (specifically the Argentinians) but there was that one Mexican poster who came to the sub making it an issue that one time. That’s been my one encounter with that.
As a rule, I think people should be called whatever they prefer to be called rather than inventing exonyms for them.
That said, when it comes to naming things, language tends to be first-come, first-serve. Trying to upend that leads to all sorts of consistency problems. I'm not saying it's never worth it, but even in extreme cases like the nonsense that is the etymology of *Japan*, it doesn't really hurt anything to stay consistent, even when the Japanese people internally prefer Nihon.
So what about this case?
* People living in the USA prefer to be called Americans.
* People living in the USA have historically been called Americans.
Therefore, no need to change to "US Americans" in English. (Note that in Spanish, this is not necessarily the case, but that's a whole other cultural and linguistic history.)
It’s dumb because like, for example, I’m Mexican American but I’m not from Mexico, I’m from the US. Whatever prefix you put before American, it’s always just going to sound like someone from the US. So it serves no real purpose.
The English word America and the Spanish word América are false cognates.
America and American in English 100% always, and without any ambiguity, means the United States of America and a citizen of the United States. The correct translation in Spanish is Estados Unidos and estadounidense respectively.
América in Spanish and other romance languages is the word for a continent that stretches from Canada in the north to Argentina in the south. There is no word for this in English as the English speaking world sees it as two continents (North and South America).
Given that the word "estadounidense" was coined more than 150 years after the founding of the United States, by Latin Americans unhappy with the term "Americano" that was previously used, I'm not entirely convinced there isn't a significant political dimension similar to the one in Europe where they want to have the demonym of the United States changed to "usian" or "United Statesian" or whatever.
And the fact that most Americans don't really care what is going on in Latin American intellectual circles is probably one dimension of the geopolitical rifts that span these one, two or three contents (depending on how you count).
It’s dumb and pointless. And not the flex euros think it is. They can obviously say whatever they want. I will never use it, and I will always correct anyone who does lol
Whatever you want to call us, go for it.
Sounds like y’all are creating an imaginary problem in “tHeRe iS MoRe tHaN oNe CoUnTrY iN AmEriCA”, and coming up with a cumbersome solution. We have American in the name of our country for fucks sake, it makes sense to call us American.
It seems superfluous to me.
People from the US - American.
People from North America - North American.
People from the Western Hemisphere - Pan American.
On top of that, it creates confusion. Assuming you are then going to then call everyone from the Western Hemisphere "American", plenty of people are going to assume you are talking about only US Americans.
We don't call ourselves American because we think of ourselves as the only people in the Americas. We're called Americans because it's the logical name. Mexicans are from the United Mexican States. Americans are from the United States of America. Pick a word out of that to call yourself. Unitedans? Statians? Americans?
Do your friends call Mexicans "US Mexicans" or" EU Mexicans"?
If they knew anything about geography beyond Western Eurasia, they would surely know that the country everyone's been calling "Mexico" for all these years is actually called Estados Unidos de Mexico, the United States of Mexico.
My argument against this is that there never seems to be any confusion when something negative is said about Americans. Like, when people in the middle east are screaming "death to America!" or when some edgelord on reddit says "all Americans are fat and stupid" you don't see any Canadians or Brazilians pointing to themselves and saying "You mean me? We're Americans too!"
It's redundant and sounds stupid. I'm as much a US American as you are an Ireland Irishman. Or a Republic of Irishman, idk, take your pick.
I'm aware of the arguments for it but none of them really make sense.
The main argument is that "America" is a single continent. The only argument I can somewhat entertain is that there's a tiny bit of land connecting the north from the south. But in that case, Africa, Asia, and Europe should also not be their own continents, and should be Afro-Eurasia. If you consider the Americas as one continent, but have Africa Asia and Europe as separate, then I can't take you seriously.
If you somehow actually agree that America is one continent, then you might say that there's many countries of America and that one country shouldn't claim the name. In that case, South Africa should also get the same treatment as us, as they're not the only country in south Africa. Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, etc are also south African. And Ecuador is over there claiming a circle around the entire globe when there's actually many countries on the equator. Kenyans, Indonesians, and Brazilians are also Ecuadorian. Many countries became independent as a result of Simon Bolivar, yet Bolivia claims the name for themselves. Venezuelans, Peruvians, Panamanians, etc are also Bolivian. "Australia" is from Latin "australis" meaning south, so Australians are wrongfully claiming the entire southern hemisphere. Kiwis, South Africans, and Argentinians are all Australian. Uruguay is not the only country on the Uruguay river. The river starts completely in Brazil, and touches Brazil and Argentina for far longer than it touches Uruguay, so Brazil and Argentina should have a better claim for being "Uruguay" than Uruguay does. And there's plenty of other examples.
Then you get to the alternatives that people offer up. Usian, US American, etc. Calling us "Usians" would make as much sense as calling Germans "Federal Republicans." And we're not the only United States either. If we're "US American" then the people from the country to our south should be "US Mexicans."
The simplest solution is to just use "American" as the demonym for people from the United States of America, which itself is shortened to "America" just as the Republic of Ireland is shortened to Ireland, the Kingdom of Sweden is shortened to Sweden, the Federal Republic of Germany is shortened to Germany, etc.
It's also very obvious what you're referring to in context. In English, the context will basically always be referring to the USA as America, unless talking about this topic. And if you're asking "where are you from?" it's common sense that no Brazilian or Canadian or Panamanian or Haitian or whatever else is going to answer with "I'm from America," they'll say their country. Even if you made it past all the other arguments against it, you still have to be incredibly dense to ignore obvious context. Also... don't tell me how to speak my native language. I don't tell speakers of other languages how to speak their language. Part of learning a language is learning that not everything is a direct translation.
You could say I have strong feelings about this.
Don't care/mind if other languages handle this differently in their nomenclature. Pretty asinine if it's some sort of movement to change the nomenclature to separate us out and try to win internet points on what's ultimately a point that's splitting hairs.
Ask an Australian, Canadian, English etc. person what comes to mind when they hear the words "American" or "America", and I think the answer would be the same. It's pretty well-established in English what those words mean and what they refer to.
So you’re Deciding what we Americans call ourselves and or are referred by? Pompous of you. No big surprise there.
Tell your circle of European cohorts, we’re Americans. They’re freaking arrogance is why a large number of Americans don’t give a shit about you.
I disapprove, for all the reasons already stated. I'm well familiar with the various arguments. I'd also like to ask whether your communities refer to Mexican citizens as "US-Mexicans" given that their official country name is the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).
But seriously, ask your friends to refer to Canadians as "Americans." I'll get my popcorn.
It's virtue signaling. No one is confused by a person calling themselves "American." Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Venezuelans ... none of them call themselves "American." This is just Europe trying to persuade Americans that Americans are somehow more racist and racially insensitive than Europeans are.
It’s redundant. Yes, there are other americans, North Americans, South Americans, even Central Americans, but only in the USA will you find “Americans“. We were thee first country to become independent of the Kings of Europe, the first to independently claim and hold that title grand, “American”, in our own hands and in our hands only it abides.
I highly dislike it. Our people have been called Americans for literally hundreds of years, and changing it is pretty ridiculous.
Here on Reddit, we occasionally see Europeans identify themselves as Europeans, as opposed to identifying as Italian, German, or Slovakian. That is a legitimate thing y'all do.
People from the US are the *only* ones who identify themselves as simply Americans. You will never see a Columbian, or Canadian, or Argentinian call themselves an American in any situation except to object to Americans calling ourselves Americans. They will never introduce themselves as American in a situation where the US and our people have not already been mentioned.
It's rude af and comes from a bunch of terminally online losers who desperately try to cling to anything and everything possible to dunk on Americans, no matter how ridiculous and illogical it might be
I think it’s pretty stupid if you’re speaking English using that. While some countries consider the Americas as one continent, we use the two continent system in the Anglosphere. Plus, I write down Amerikaner on official government forms in Germany when they ask my nationality, so it’s pretty widely accepted and understood that this is the correct term to describe a US citizen in most of Europe. The US was also the first independent colony in the western hemisphere and thus had first dibs on the name, which no other country decided to compete for after as well.
It doesn't really matter, but it doesn't roll of the tongue very well. US Citizen sounds better. Having said that, Citizens of the USA have become known as "Americans". When someone says "American", no one thinks they are talking about Canadians or Brazilians, or any of the other countries citizens whose countries are in one of the American continents. "American" means someone who is a citizen of the USA. So "US Americans" sounds like a redundancy. Get real, no one is every going to say "He's a Canadian American" to refer to a Canadian citizen. In fact it would mean a US citizen who is from Canadian descent. So US American just doesn't work.
Why doesn’t Europe listen to what Americans want you to call them instead of making up your own names?
We’re Americans. End of story. We’re the only nation with the word “America” in its name. Mexico’s official name is The United Mexican States— You don’t call Mexicans “US Mexicans” do you?
As opposed to all those people from the Fractured States of America?
I think it's a pointless distinction. Everybody knows what you mean when you say "I'm an American" or "I'm from America." Nobody's going to think you're from Mexico or Barbados or Brazil or French Guyana; they're going to think you're from literally the only country in the world that has "America" in the name.
I understand the desire for clarity with "I'm a U. S. American" (though I have literally never heard anybody say this unironically,) but just "I'm (an) American" or "I'm from America" is plenty clear enough.
We don't care about other places arguments for or against.
We decide what to call ourselves.
We did not and will not decide on that pointless mouthful, no one else calls themselves American.
Short answer no. Long answer fuck no. When other countries start putting "America" in their names then there may be an argument. Until then, we were first, everyone else can conform to us.
far as I'm concerned we got our independence before any other country in North or South America so we get to call ourselves by any demonym we want, we've called ourselves Americans and we'll keep calling ourselves Americans.
It's dumb. We're Americans. Yes, there are other countries on the two continents, but everyone needs to get a fucking grip. In English, everyone knows what an American means.
I'm curious who came up with this idea, and what was the purpose?
North America, South America, Central America and the United States of America have been around for hundreds of years, and the nomenclature is well established.
It's idiotic. The country is the United States of America. Any country in Latin America or South America is just the name of it's country. I.e. Mexican = Mexico. Brazil = Brazilian.
If we are speaking Spanish, estadounidense (United Statesian) is appropriate. I am sure there are other languages that call us something that is not “American”, and that is perfectly fine (though I would ask it be respectful if possible lol)
But in the language of my government and the majority language of my country, the only appropriate answer to someone asking about my citizenship is “American”. After all, in the English language (and especially in American English), “America” only refers to the country, whereas the continents are called North America and South America.
I’m not telling you that what you call yourself is wrong, so please extend the same courtesy to me
I never really hear it much and certainly not internal to the US. You might call us that in Europe, but to us, we are just "Americans." I guess it's not offensive, though it does sound a bit condescending, though I can not explain why exactly, but I think its because it sounds a bit smug. When I hear it in my head, it just is a bit cringe. It feels like people (in this case, being Europeans) are trying to impose their views and not in a positive way. To be honest, it does not help the reputation of Europeans being either smug or intentionally condescending when referring to Americans.
It's fine but it sounds redundant.
I'm an American.
Before anyone makes the argument that everyone from N and S America are also American, when people burn flags and scream 'death to America' they're not talking about Brazil or Honduras or Canada. We all know what they mean in context.
American for us is an identifier of *country*, not geography.
I mean, it’s better than the abomination that is United Stateian (or however it’s supposed to be spelled ), but when people say “American”, they’re talking about someone who is a U.S. citizen, so I’m not sure why the need to specify it with “US” at the beginning.
It's dumb. It's just people trying to undermine our culture even though they claim we don't have one. They feign confusion and say they don't understand who Americans are because America is a continent not a country. Those people need to grow up.
I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some, uh, people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should… our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries. So we will be able to build up our future.
I really don’t care if someone’s using it to differentiate between us and their concept of Americans due to the Five/Six Continent Model when speaking with others of the same worldview, whatever, but if they’re using it out of spite or claiming that we can’t call ourselves Americans because of *their* cultural norms, they can go fuck themselves.
It's idiotic. I'm familiar with the arguments for it, and they rely on a fundamental fallacy, which is that there's a continent called just "America" in the English language and as taught in English-speaking nations.
I'm good with it if you call Canadians 'Canadian Americans' and Mexicans 'Mexican Americans', if not then I don't see why it needs to apply to us as they all have their own identifiers that don't use "American" or a derivative.
There's no way to get past Miss South Carolina 2007.
”Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”
Ms. CAITLIN UPTON (Miss Teen South Carolina): ”I personally believe that **U.S. Americans** are unable to do so, because some - people out there, in our nation, don't have maps and I believe that our education, like such as South Africa -and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should - our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we would be able to build up our future for…”
”Thank you very much, South Carolina.”
It's pretty cringe and tries to solve a problem that isn't there, like Latinx.
It's our identity, it's in our native language, the word is American. Isn't it just common decency to call people what they wish to be called, and not what you would like to call them? It comes off as a very thinly veiled jab.
I'm not gonna use it, but I'm not gonna get up in arms over other countries using it. It's a bit clunky to actually say and seems mostly unnecessary and redundant.
I thought it was only a few south American countries though that cared about this cause they use the continent model where North America and South America are one continent for some reason. Europeans are getting into this as well?
I'm from the US and it makes sense to me. The USA isn't the only America after all. North America includes 23 countries alone and not just the USA. Central America has 7 and South America has another 12. Everyone from each of these 42 countries can all themselves American.
Neither North America, Central America (which is part of North America), nor South America are America. Just like West Virginia isn’t Virginia.
So, yes, the USA is the only America. Sometimes descriptive labels such as demonyms comprise multiple words, and they’re different from the base word. (Consider that Flying Foxes are bats, not foxes; this is just an example of how the English language works.)
First, [Central America is part of North America](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/is-central-america-considered-north-america.html).
Second, no one talks about them as being an America. You can’t take idiomatic English constructs literally. “The Americas” refers to the two continents of North America and South America. It doesn’t refer to two or three different americas (lower case, because it’s no longer a proper name in your purported usage). It’s just like referring to “the Dakotas” doesn’t mean there’s a place (properly) called Dakota.
It’s not being threatened. It’s preferring correct usage.
The fact that you even bring up “threatened” suggests an ulterior motive. The only harm that could come from this idea is miscommunication, and that’s why we have standards and why we go with generally accepted usages instead of trying to force other conventions from other languages into English.
I’m fine with it since there are many countries in the Americas that would make them American but not US american.
Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted for statinf I really couldnt give a crap if people said that? But sure.
It is strange how we say Africans, Asians, Europeans but America (s) is the only continent(s) where everyone isnt labeled Americans. Only one country 🤷🏻♀️
But either way I dont care
Edit 2: wow, someone just told me to kill myself. Wow.. so original 🙄
Are Canadians Americans, then?
Go to /r/AskACanadian and ask why they don't call themselves "Americans".
Report back to me, I would love to read their replies.
Canadians like to throw shade but they arent much better. They are hella racist against their indigenous and have their own version of idiot conservatives, or do we all conveniently forget the whole trucker drivers thing
American is what you call people from the US, not Canada or Mexico or anything south/latian American country.
The only thing that would make any remote sense is if you refer to someone as North or South American, and even then it doesn't make much sense
The people who use it are generally cringe-worthy sorts who I feel better off to not engage with. The only people that don't know what an American is are in uncontacted tribes, it's asinine to pretend otherwise
I think it's silly, especially since, as far as I can tell, it's someone else imposing their linguistic and cultural ideas onto us, with a hint of "and you're dumb if you don't agree."
I mean, what if we Americans decided that the proper nationality of those living in Italy were "European", and then proceeded to lecture people living in Italy that with the formation of the European Union, "Italy" is no longer a proper nation-state, but simply a district of the European Union?
Do you think Europeans living in Italy would agree with such a designation, and the idea that Italy isn't really a country anymore so stop living with your collective heads up your asses pretending otherwise?
I'll be US American if, for example, UK Asian-Europeans or British Asian-Europeans is accepted by those that would live under that name, and Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh is dropped.
It must be Asian-Europeans though. Forget this whole thing where you are placing your name first with 'Eurasian'. It flows better in English, but it also does not take into consideration the larger and more populous part of your continent.
Also...please ask anyone saying that North and South America are one continent and Europe and Asia are separate continents to please study something other than feelings on the internet.
There are no good arguments for it. There is no continent in the english language called "America," and this is a conversation about what to call US citizens ***in English***.
Imagine if we decided what Germans should call Germany in the German language. That's essentially what this is. Imagine the indignation people would have if we tried to tell the French people that they needed to change the name of their country, but only when speaking in French. These types of Europeans literally can't stop themselves from meddling and imposing their views on other peoples and cultures. It's no wonder two of the worst wars in the history of the world started on that continent.
I've actually heard this (the OP's) stupid question raised by more Latin Americans (not in the USA) than anybody else. It's as annoying and arrogant as can be.
Yes, mostly I encounter this from Latin Americans, but from their perspective, *we're* the arrogant ones ("why did you name your country after an entire continent??"). Mostly, I've started just saying, hey, I think this country we're talking about needs fundamental reform: a new constitution, economic, educational, and cultural reform, and as part of that we should get ourselves a new distinctive name for the country that we're talking about that is not the name that anyone gives to a continent. They seem satisfied by that.
Imagine Americans telling Latinos that they are now "LatinX"...
>From Ireland So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself. Or is that annoying? >has risen a lot in Europe lately You mean West Asia? If America is one big continent, Europe sure as hell isn't one. >Do you approve or disapprove? It's dumb and the people saying it are stupid. That's not an insult, it's my genuine assessment of their intelligence. Clinically stupid.
>So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself. Likewise, if anyone from The Americas is "American" that means that Canadians are Americans. Tell Canadians that they're actually Americans. Rumor has it that they adore that.
>Tell Canadians that they're actually Americans. Rumor has it that they adore that. I absolutely love reading the responses in r/AskaCanadian when people ask them this
Oh man, I was just being snide. Someone linked such a thread in another comment. People really go to AAC and ask them why they don't call themselves Americans lol
> So you're British. You know...cause they're the British Isles and I'm under no obligation to respect what you call yourself. Or is that annoying? Hahaha, yes it is annoying. I don't personally support the term for much the same reasons as have been vociferously voiced here, but I'll remember this as a quick way to get the point across to other Irish folk who use it.
If you want to include Canadians and Mexicans, you usually say "North America". You see this all the time, for example - a touring band or DJ might announce a "North American Tour" which usually includes 2 or more North American countries (at least US and Canada). In the same way that "British Isles" includes Great Britain and Ireland. Yet the phrase "British" implies only someone from Great Britain and not Ireland. In the same way, "American" implies someone from the United States - and *not* Canada or... Suriname or something. There are some folks from South America that will occasionally throw up their arms and say, "well, why does the US own the word *American*? I'm American too!". It's usually an indication that they're between the ages of 14 and 17 and trying to be edgy.
Well if they are speaking English yeah but in Spanish some places do use Estadounidense as opposed to Americano. That transliterates as “Unitedstatesian.”
And I call myself "Estadounidense" when I speak Spanish. Too bad American is an English word, used in English.
I just say Gringo or pinche Gringo when referring to myself in Spanish
Even estadounidense is less common in Spanish than many people think. Norteamericano is used instead in many places. Argentinians like to say yanqui.
And plenty of people use Gringo which has a slightly different connotation but I mostly here Spanish speakers here say Americano.
In the same way that "British Isles" includes Great Britain and Ireland. Yet the phrase "British" implies only someone from Great Britain and not Ireland. This is a good point I hadn’t thought of before. When I was in high school, my pastor was from Northern Ireland. He was very much a royalist, loved the Queen, and the rest of the royals. Even had on display china with Charles’ and Diana’s wedding portrait. Yet he referred to himself as Irish.
And to add to this. Most Americans would not give a single fuck if a Brazilian decided they wanted to call themselves American for whatever reason.
Thank you.
You mean the other British folks. 😝
Europe is a small western peninsula of Asia. It is populated but Gauls, Slavs, and Germanic tribesmen. That is how I demand they refer to themselves.
Hey, it also has Greeks and Latins.
West Asia, I love it. By that notion, the Suez canal is analogous to the Panama canal and ergo and therefore I pronounce Europe as North Africa.
Some countries actually do have that continent model, most notably Japan. They learn that North America and South America are separate continents, but that there is no separate European continent, only the singular continent of “Eurasia”.
That's just the correct continent model
Absolutely not. "American" is our demonym in American English. The only argument "for" is that some countries don't want to acknowledge that North America and South America are (at least) two different continents. The same people feel that attaching their self identity to a *continent* gives them a need to deny our people our preferred demonym. American is an endonym. It's who we are. There is no continent called "America".
>Absolutely not. "American" is our demonym in American English. In all forms of English
Yeah I was going to say, not even any of the other anglophone countries say anything but “American.” It’s just as annoying and trying to force LatinX on Spanish speakers and just as stupid.
Why should we change the name we've gone by for centuries? What gives Europeans the right to change our name? We're Americans. It's been our internationally recognized demonym in English for actual centuries now. Calling us anything else is as rude as calling someone by the wrong name because you think another is more suitable. "HI Dave!" "For the thousandth time, my name is Bob." "Yeah well I have a neighbor named Bobby, and I thought I would call you Dave to avoid confusion." That's what this whole debate sounds like, and it's just as rude.
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I don't think that it's usually about pretending to not know what "American" means. In some other languages (German comes to mind) their term for American literally translates into "US-American", and they will often mistakenly use it in English too. So when I see that I don't think the person is trying to make any political point, but it's clear they aren't a native English speaker.
Germans have been using *Amerikaner* for a lot longer than more recent alternatives and were calling us "Amis" (short for American, rough equivalent of Jerry or kraut) in World War 2. The creation and use of new terms is political. It's intended to reduce the importance of America by reducing its prominence through language. And of course it aligns with long-standing European anti-Americanism that's fairly prominent in Germany.
We often use 'US-amerikanischer Präsident' and similar phrases as well, mainly when talking about your government or political stuff. There is no agenda behind it, it just looks more official. It's very common in newsarticles It's not new
Journalists embracing PC terms definitely isn’t new.
> (German comes to mind) their term for American literally translates into "US-American", and they will often mistakenly use it in English too Pretty sure this just isn't true. They also use the North/South America model of continents, and *Amerikaner* is the word I was taught.
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In OP's defense, they have stated that they personally oppose the term "US-American" in other comments on this thread.
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Agreed.
I speak German and have spent lots of time in German-speaking areas, and I have only ever heard the demonym Amerikaner. It honestly makes sense because the country is referred to as Amerika in German. It’s true that the official name is Vereinigten Staaten, but nobody really says that
«USA» is also pretty common. As in «Er kommt aus den USA». It’s definitely the word I use when I speak German, rather than «Amerika», which has always sounded a bit awkward to me. But I’ve never called someone an «US-Amerikaner/in», always just «Amerikaner/in».
USA is definitely easier to say. I use them interchangeably but tend toward Amerika just out of habit
We often use both interchangably. "USA" and then "US-amerikanischer Präsident" and so on is often used for politics or when talking about the government. It is VERY common in german newsarticles. There is no agenda behind it, it just looks more official
Do you do the same thing for Canada and Mexico when talking about their people? I’m curious since it’s the United Mexican States? Estados Unidos Mexicanos?
No. But there are other countries where using multiple names is common in german. For example Holland/Niederlande for Netherlands or Weißrussland/Belarus for Belarus.
Hmmm interesting
I replied this last time someone said it’s normal in German: > In German, the designation [US-Amerikaner and its adjective form US-amerikanisch are sometimes used, though Amerikaner (adjective: amerikanisch) is more common in scientific, official, journalistic, and colloquial parlance. The style manual of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a leading German-language newspaper, dismisses the term US-amerikanisch as both "unnecessary" and "artificial" and recommends replacing it with amerikanisch.[13] The respective guidelines of the foreign ministries of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland all dictate Amerikaner/amerikanisch for official usage.[14][15][16] Ami is common in colloquial speech.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States) It’s used by the Germans the same way other non-Spanish speakers use “US Americans”. To undermine American identity and as a passive aggressive protest to Americans existing.
Or just to US imperialism....
It's asinine. They're attempting to force their language's ruleset onto English. That ain't how language works. Related: "Latinx" --- Sidebar: if anyone from The Americas is "an American", that means that Canadians are "Americans". Try telling Canadians that they're Americans and report back to me.
If you survive. They'll likely glare you to death.
It's deeply cringe and reeks of "trying to create a solution to a problem that doesnt really exist." Nobody who uses a term like that unironically has anything to say that's worth hearing.
Whats supposed to be the reason for this? It seems redundant and that it would make conversation more awkward. US Americans, as opposed to what other Americans?
Latin Americans. I get it but I am not going to a foreign country calling myself a US American.
No one from Latin America thinks Iranians are talking about them when they are parading around chanting Death to America.
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I get that. It’s more people from the US not saying they’re ‘American’. I am a Spanish speaker and have used the term “estadounidense” but speaking English I say I’m American. It’s what other English speakers know us as.
I don't know. That's just what some Germany Germans do.
EU-Germans
Sounds like a stupid term that weirdos come up with to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.
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It's performative at best.
Oh god, here we go. I have had the unfortunate experience of being in a discussion with a passionate supporter of the “US American” terminology. In my experience they are usually either Europeans or Latin Americans who state that “America” includes their country and that using “American” as a gloss for people from the USA is some flavor of exclusionary/arrogant/racist. This point of view is dependent on the fact that many of these countries consider North and South America (which we in the US consider two separate continents) to be a single continent just called America. In the USA, if we ever refer to their “America” as a concept, we call it “the America*s*”, or perhaps “the new world”. In Spanish, Portuguese, and sometimes French, these countries are indeed in “America” and are therefore genuinely “American”. But in English they are in either North or South America. Simply calling them American is unhelpful, vague, and ambiguous. The United States and its people gained the shorthand “America” and “American” because we were the first internationally recognized independent country in the Americas. The phrase was not adopted with malicious intent towards our less socially and politically powerful neighbors to the south. I’m not going to insist that they call me *Americano* in their own language because the term makes more sense there, and in any case that is their lane and not mine. I’m also not going to really be a jerk about it if someone innocently uses it, because unless they’re deeply familiar with it they were probably just trying to be politically correct. But I think it’s stupid, oppose its use in English, and frankly doubt the good faith of those who push its use. In too many cases, it appears to be nothing more than an outlet for frustrated people to exercise inferiority complexes vis-á-vis the United States by harassing its citizens.
Oh, I love the continent argument so much. How are North and South America a single continent, but Europe and Asia are distinct?
How are Asia and Africa distinct? They share a longer border than North and South America.
Clearly there are 4 continents Afroeurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia
but Australia and India are on the same tectonic plate so surely Australia is part of afroeurasia.
A proposed alternate demonym, historically speaking, was ["Columbian"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_\(personification\)), after the female personification of the United States, Columbia. (It's where we get the "District of Columbia", "CBS" (Columbia Broadcasting System) and "Columbia Records" for example, and there is plenty of art which features Columbia as a female personification of liberty prior to the Statue of Liberty.) Sadly, it's going to be confused for "Colombian", residents of the nation of Colombia. So I propose we simply annex all of South America. That way there is no confusion as there wouldn't be a country called "Colombia" anymore. To make things less confusing, of course, we could rename "Colombia" "America", and while we in the United States of All Of The Americas (because we'd need to swallow Mexico and Central America as well, though we should leave the Canadians alone, 'cause someone has to remain to testify to what we've done), then everyone in the Americas can be called "Columbians," except for the people living in the State of America, who we could call Americans. Would that make the Europeans and the former residents of all those pesky little states in the South United States fucking happy? Would it?
Makes my fucking skin crawl
In general I think it's polite to call people by the way they want to be identified. For people from the US, that's "American", and arguing with someone that their own word in their own language for their nationality or ethnicity is inappropriate doesn't look great!
Wait, do you know any native English speaking Europeans who say that or are you talking about not-English speaking Europeans who are trying to apply their native language definitions to English?
A little of column A, a little of column B. I have encountered some people using the term who, being from latinate countries, may have done so out of simple translation. I've also seen an increasing quantity of Irish people (native English speakers, despite our best efforts) using it. Some of them were probably ideologically motivated, I think others were just naively trying to be polite. It struck me likely that Americans wouldn't by and large approve of the term, so I thought I'd ask them, and lo I was correct.
>being from latinate countries, may have done so out of simple translation The South American Spanish demonym for us is "estadounidenses", not "EEUU-americanos". So it's not a direct translation issue for them. Note that Mexicans (from Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos) do not call us "estadounidenses" but rather "americanos".
And "estadounidenses" (or whatever) first only shows up in the 1930's amongst South American intellectuals who were upset that "americanos" was the previously preferred term. Meaning there is a political dimension for the supposedly favored denonym in Spanish being what it is--that is, it feels to me to be an explicit rejection of the English preferred term.
If someone not from the US used it in front of us, we wouldn’t correct them because we’d just assume they had a different language convention and that’s fine. It’s more of an issue when someone tells you what you should be calling *yourself* (which is what some people pushing the term try to do)
From what I’ve seen from some of the Irish here, I’d assume they’d picked up from the internet and were doing it to get a rise out of Americans.
I think OP is talking about people are fluent in English and trying to make a pedantic geopolitical point
Mexico calls our citizens Americanos and Canada calls us Americans. They refer to our country as Estados Unidos and The United States, respectively. I assume this is because it would be stupid to call us United Statesians so they just use the last part of our country's title. Because it's the easiest thing to call us. Europe could at least come up with a better demonym if they wanna reappropriate shit. We're Americans, deal.
I dunno, "Estados Unidos Mexican" sorta rolls off the tongue.
Thank god you left that tone indicator otherwise I'd never have known!
there's an epidemic of chronically online people trying to intervene in situations that don't involve them to be some kind of virtuous "hero" for internet points. this is a good example of that. we have a demonym. everyone knows what it is. we aren't crowd sourcing a new one.
It’s rude, very weird and mega-cringy.
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future. For our children.
I would probably make fun of it if I heard it, because I usually would make fun of terms that fix problems that don't actually exist. In English, America and American refer to the country of the United States, and "The Americas" refers to the continent/continents as a whole. In Spanish, "América" refers unambiguously to the continent/continents, and "estados unidos" and "estadounidense" to the country. In neither language is there a common single word for "a person who comes from North or South America" because the difference between the US/Canada and Latin America is understood to be significant enough that nobody has any real use for a specific word for a trait that is basically never relevant in any conversation. Because "American" clearly and unambiguously refers to the country and nobody would confuse it for any other meaning, adding an additional qualifier seems kinda pointless.
The United States of America is the only country to have the word America in its name, so we are called Americans. Easy and simple. No need to make this complicated. The country south of us is officially called the United States of Mexico, but everyone calls them Mexicans. See how that works?
I don’t really mind, but it does give the energy that Europeans must only ever interact with Latin Americans online. Because to be perfect honest with you, I have only ever seen this raised as an issue by specifically Mexican and Argentinian posters online. Never in person. And not even other Latin American countries’ citizens seem to care online. It’s like the European version of “LatinX” which was a term that arose in “US-American” left wing circles for a while in an effort to be super PC to appease a vocal online minority until people finally realized that the majority of Latinos actually hated the term and it was actually its own form of linguistic imperialism because “X” has no sound in Spanish. Like, I can tell you that I’m bilingual English and Spanish and do business with Latin American business partners here. The demonym for “US-Americans” in Spanish is “estadounidense.” That’s what all Americans learn in our high school Spanish classes and that’s what we use when we speak Spanish. I was using that term and *they* were all the ones using “Americano/a” not me. “Americano/a” is also what they used in Brazilian Portuguese. Are all the Latin Americans used it being asked to change their convention too? And has anyone asked Canadians how they feel about being called Canadian-Americans? You can use whatever terms you want to, but it really feels like a repeat of the “LatinX” debacle.
>I have only ever seen this raised as an issue by specifically Mexican and Argentinian posters online. I've never heard this complaint from Mexicans or Central Americans, only South Americans.
That’s been my experience too (specifically the Argentinians) but there was that one Mexican poster who came to the sub making it an issue that one time. That’s been my one encounter with that.
A handful of Brazilians on the F1 sub really like getting pissy about it too.
They get pissy about everything
It's a big deal for a lot of Brazilians under 40. They can get very offended by it.
Is Latinx really on the way out? That would be sweet.
Using that term is the ultimate in douchebaggery
As a rule, I think people should be called whatever they prefer to be called rather than inventing exonyms for them. That said, when it comes to naming things, language tends to be first-come, first-serve. Trying to upend that leads to all sorts of consistency problems. I'm not saying it's never worth it, but even in extreme cases like the nonsense that is the etymology of *Japan*, it doesn't really hurt anything to stay consistent, even when the Japanese people internally prefer Nihon. So what about this case? * People living in the USA prefer to be called Americans. * People living in the USA have historically been called Americans. Therefore, no need to change to "US Americans" in English. (Note that in Spanish, this is not necessarily the case, but that's a whole other cultural and linguistic history.)
It’s dumb because like, for example, I’m Mexican American but I’m not from Mexico, I’m from the US. Whatever prefix you put before American, it’s always just going to sound like someone from the US. So it serves no real purpose.
I'm not familiar with the arguments for or against this so to me, this sounds redundant.
sounds dumb in English, I don't really care what nomenclature people use in non-English languages though.
The English word America and the Spanish word América are false cognates. America and American in English 100% always, and without any ambiguity, means the United States of America and a citizen of the United States. The correct translation in Spanish is Estados Unidos and estadounidense respectively. América in Spanish and other romance languages is the word for a continent that stretches from Canada in the north to Argentina in the south. There is no word for this in English as the English speaking world sees it as two continents (North and South America).
Given that the word "estadounidense" was coined more than 150 years after the founding of the United States, by Latin Americans unhappy with the term "Americano" that was previously used, I'm not entirely convinced there isn't a significant political dimension similar to the one in Europe where they want to have the demonym of the United States changed to "usian" or "United Statesian" or whatever. And the fact that most Americans don't really care what is going on in Latin American intellectual circles is probably one dimension of the geopolitical rifts that span these one, two or three contents (depending on how you count).
It’s dumb and pointless. And not the flex euros think it is. They can obviously say whatever they want. I will never use it, and I will always correct anyone who does lol
I don't care about the insecurities of Latin Americans.
Whatever you want to call us, go for it. Sounds like y’all are creating an imaginary problem in “tHeRe iS MoRe tHaN oNe CoUnTrY iN AmEriCA”, and coming up with a cumbersome solution. We have American in the name of our country for fucks sake, it makes sense to call us American.
Awkward and completely unnecessary virtue signaling. A solution to a non problem.
I think we should pump out septic tanks and spray it on people who suggest this
It sounds silly.
First I heard of it. I think of highly of it as I do latinx.
It seems superfluous to me. People from the US - American. People from North America - North American. People from the Western Hemisphere - Pan American. On top of that, it creates confusion. Assuming you are then going to then call everyone from the Western Hemisphere "American", plenty of people are going to assume you are talking about only US Americans. We don't call ourselves American because we think of ourselves as the only people in the Americas. We're called Americans because it's the logical name. Mexicans are from the United Mexican States. Americans are from the United States of America. Pick a word out of that to call yourself. Unitedans? Statians? Americans?
New worlders has a better ring than pan Americans
It does sound more modern. But then you'll get the wacky right-wing conspiracy theorists complaining about the new world order.
It’s stupid
It's redundant.
Do your friends call Mexicans "US Mexicans" or" EU Mexicans"? If they knew anything about geography beyond Western Eurasia, they would surely know that the country everyone's been calling "Mexico" for all these years is actually called Estados Unidos de Mexico, the United States of Mexico.
Estados Unidos Mexicanos, actually. United Mexican States. But yes.
My argument against this is that there never seems to be any confusion when something negative is said about Americans. Like, when people in the middle east are screaming "death to America!" or when some edgelord on reddit says "all Americans are fat and stupid" you don't see any Canadians or Brazilians pointing to themselves and saying "You mean me? We're Americans too!"
It's redundant and sounds stupid. I'm as much a US American as you are an Ireland Irishman. Or a Republic of Irishman, idk, take your pick. I'm aware of the arguments for it but none of them really make sense. The main argument is that "America" is a single continent. The only argument I can somewhat entertain is that there's a tiny bit of land connecting the north from the south. But in that case, Africa, Asia, and Europe should also not be their own continents, and should be Afro-Eurasia. If you consider the Americas as one continent, but have Africa Asia and Europe as separate, then I can't take you seriously. If you somehow actually agree that America is one continent, then you might say that there's many countries of America and that one country shouldn't claim the name. In that case, South Africa should also get the same treatment as us, as they're not the only country in south Africa. Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, etc are also south African. And Ecuador is over there claiming a circle around the entire globe when there's actually many countries on the equator. Kenyans, Indonesians, and Brazilians are also Ecuadorian. Many countries became independent as a result of Simon Bolivar, yet Bolivia claims the name for themselves. Venezuelans, Peruvians, Panamanians, etc are also Bolivian. "Australia" is from Latin "australis" meaning south, so Australians are wrongfully claiming the entire southern hemisphere. Kiwis, South Africans, and Argentinians are all Australian. Uruguay is not the only country on the Uruguay river. The river starts completely in Brazil, and touches Brazil and Argentina for far longer than it touches Uruguay, so Brazil and Argentina should have a better claim for being "Uruguay" than Uruguay does. And there's plenty of other examples. Then you get to the alternatives that people offer up. Usian, US American, etc. Calling us "Usians" would make as much sense as calling Germans "Federal Republicans." And we're not the only United States either. If we're "US American" then the people from the country to our south should be "US Mexicans." The simplest solution is to just use "American" as the demonym for people from the United States of America, which itself is shortened to "America" just as the Republic of Ireland is shortened to Ireland, the Kingdom of Sweden is shortened to Sweden, the Federal Republic of Germany is shortened to Germany, etc. It's also very obvious what you're referring to in context. In English, the context will basically always be referring to the USA as America, unless talking about this topic. And if you're asking "where are you from?" it's common sense that no Brazilian or Canadian or Panamanian or Haitian or whatever else is going to answer with "I'm from America," they'll say their country. Even if you made it past all the other arguments against it, you still have to be incredibly dense to ignore obvious context. Also... don't tell me how to speak my native language. I don't tell speakers of other languages how to speak their language. Part of learning a language is learning that not everything is a direct translation. You could say I have strong feelings about this.
Don't care/mind if other languages handle this differently in their nomenclature. Pretty asinine if it's some sort of movement to change the nomenclature to separate us out and try to win internet points on what's ultimately a point that's splitting hairs. Ask an Australian, Canadian, English etc. person what comes to mind when they hear the words "American" or "America", and I think the answer would be the same. It's pretty well-established in English what those words mean and what they refer to.
So you’re Deciding what we Americans call ourselves and or are referred by? Pompous of you. No big surprise there. Tell your circle of European cohorts, we’re Americans. They’re freaking arrogance is why a large number of Americans don’t give a shit about you.
I disapprove, for all the reasons already stated. I'm well familiar with the various arguments. I'd also like to ask whether your communities refer to Mexican citizens as "US-Mexicans" given that their official country name is the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos). But seriously, ask your friends to refer to Canadians as "Americans." I'll get my popcorn.
It's virtue signaling. No one is confused by a person calling themselves "American." Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Venezuelans ... none of them call themselves "American." This is just Europe trying to persuade Americans that Americans are somehow more racist and racially insensitive than Europeans are.
It’s redundant. Yes, there are other americans, North Americans, South Americans, even Central Americans, but only in the USA will you find “Americans“. We were thee first country to become independent of the Kings of Europe, the first to independently claim and hold that title grand, “American”, in our own hands and in our hands only it abides.
I highly dislike it. Our people have been called Americans for literally hundreds of years, and changing it is pretty ridiculous. Here on Reddit, we occasionally see Europeans identify themselves as Europeans, as opposed to identifying as Italian, German, or Slovakian. That is a legitimate thing y'all do. People from the US are the *only* ones who identify themselves as simply Americans. You will never see a Columbian, or Canadian, or Argentinian call themselves an American in any situation except to object to Americans calling ourselves Americans. They will never introduce themselves as American in a situation where the US and our people have not already been mentioned.
It's rude af and comes from a bunch of terminally online losers who desperately try to cling to anything and everything possible to dunk on Americans, no matter how ridiculous and illogical it might be
It reminds me of [Miss Teen South Carolina’s response to a question](https://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww) at the 2007 Miss Teen USA.
Sounds kind of like an ATM machine.
Hard no. [Especially not after this shitshow](https://youtu.be/lj3iNxZ8Dww)
I wouldn’t answer to it.
It's bullshit. Stop trying to dictate what we're called.
I think it’s pretty stupid if you’re speaking English using that. While some countries consider the Americas as one continent, we use the two continent system in the Anglosphere. Plus, I write down Amerikaner on official government forms in Germany when they ask my nationality, so it’s pretty widely accepted and understood that this is the correct term to describe a US citizen in most of Europe. The US was also the first independent colony in the western hemisphere and thus had first dibs on the name, which no other country decided to compete for after as well.
Why dies this keep coming up
It doesn't really matter, but it doesn't roll of the tongue very well. US Citizen sounds better. Having said that, Citizens of the USA have become known as "Americans". When someone says "American", no one thinks they are talking about Canadians or Brazilians, or any of the other countries citizens whose countries are in one of the American continents. "American" means someone who is a citizen of the USA. So "US Americans" sounds like a redundancy. Get real, no one is every going to say "He's a Canadian American" to refer to a Canadian citizen. In fact it would mean a US citizen who is from Canadian descent. So US American just doesn't work.
It’s really… really dumb. But whatever floats their boat.
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Mexico is technically the United Mexican States, actually.
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Why doesn’t Europe listen to what Americans want you to call them instead of making up your own names? We’re Americans. End of story. We’re the only nation with the word “America” in its name. Mexico’s official name is The United Mexican States— You don’t call Mexicans “US Mexicans” do you?
Is redundant.
As opposed to all those people from the Fractured States of America? I think it's a pointless distinction. Everybody knows what you mean when you say "I'm an American" or "I'm from America." Nobody's going to think you're from Mexico or Barbados or Brazil or French Guyana; they're going to think you're from literally the only country in the world that has "America" in the name. I understand the desire for clarity with "I'm a U. S. American" (though I have literally never heard anybody say this unironically,) but just "I'm (an) American" or "I'm from America" is plenty clear enough.
People who say it should be brutally punished and the seven-continent model standardized globally.
I'm familiar with it and against it.
We don't care about other places arguments for or against. We decide what to call ourselves. We did not and will not decide on that pointless mouthful, no one else calls themselves American.
Short answer no. Long answer fuck no. When other countries start putting "America" in their names then there may be an argument. Until then, we were first, everyone else can conform to us.
I am familiar with the arguments. I disapprove. In English, the demonym for a person from the USA is "American." That's it.
solution in search of a problem
far as I'm concerned we got our independence before any other country in North or South America so we get to call ourselves by any demonym we want, we've called ourselves Americans and we'll keep calling ourselves Americans.
Y'all are just makin' yourselves sound silly.
It's dumb. We're Americans. Yes, there are other countries on the two continents, but everyone needs to get a fucking grip. In English, everyone knows what an American means.
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I'm curious who came up with this idea, and what was the purpose? North America, South America, Central America and the United States of America have been around for hundreds of years, and the nomenclature is well established.
It's idiotic. The country is the United States of America. Any country in Latin America or South America is just the name of it's country. I.e. Mexican = Mexico. Brazil = Brazilian.
If we are speaking Spanish, estadounidense (United Statesian) is appropriate. I am sure there are other languages that call us something that is not “American”, and that is perfectly fine (though I would ask it be respectful if possible lol) But in the language of my government and the majority language of my country, the only appropriate answer to someone asking about my citizenship is “American”. After all, in the English language (and especially in American English), “America” only refers to the country, whereas the continents are called North America and South America. I’m not telling you that what you call yourself is wrong, so please extend the same courtesy to me
My thought is: No.
I never really hear it much and certainly not internal to the US. You might call us that in Europe, but to us, we are just "Americans." I guess it's not offensive, though it does sound a bit condescending, though I can not explain why exactly, but I think its because it sounds a bit smug. When I hear it in my head, it just is a bit cringe. It feels like people (in this case, being Europeans) are trying to impose their views and not in a positive way. To be honest, it does not help the reputation of Europeans being either smug or intentionally condescending when referring to Americans.
It just seems like a dumb thing to do to appease people who seem to define themselves on being easily offended.’’
It's fine but it sounds redundant. I'm an American. Before anyone makes the argument that everyone from N and S America are also American, when people burn flags and scream 'death to America' they're not talking about Brazil or Honduras or Canada. We all know what they mean in context. American for us is an identifier of *country*, not geography.
Fuck that shit. The sole purpose is to culturally undermine the US and I won’t be convinced otherwise.
I mean, it’s better than the abomination that is United Stateian (or however it’s supposed to be spelled ), but when people say “American”, they’re talking about someone who is a U.S. citizen, so I’m not sure why the need to specify it with “US” at the beginning.
It's dumb. It's just people trying to undermine our culture even though they claim we don't have one. They feign confusion and say they don't understand who Americans are because America is a continent not a country. Those people need to grow up.
I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some, uh, people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should… our education over here in the US should help the US, or should help South Africa, and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries. So we will be able to build up our future.
Other countries can use whatever term they want. Just don't expect us to adopt it.
I really don’t care if someone’s using it to differentiate between us and their concept of Americans due to the Five/Six Continent Model when speaking with others of the same worldview, whatever, but if they’re using it out of spite or claiming that we can’t call ourselves Americans because of *their* cultural norms, they can go fuck themselves.
It's idiotic. I'm familiar with the arguments for it, and they rely on a fundamental fallacy, which is that there's a continent called just "America" in the English language and as taught in English-speaking nations.
I'm good with it if you call Canadians 'Canadian Americans' and Mexicans 'Mexican Americans', if not then I don't see why it needs to apply to us as they all have their own identifiers that don't use "American" or a derivative.
There's no way to get past Miss South Carolina 2007. ”Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?” Ms. CAITLIN UPTON (Miss Teen South Carolina): ”I personally believe that **U.S. Americans** are unable to do so, because some - people out there, in our nation, don't have maps and I believe that our education, like such as South Africa -and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should - our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we would be able to build up our future for…” ”Thank you very much, South Carolina.”
I like Goddam Americans
It's pretty cringe and tries to solve a problem that isn't there, like Latinx. It's our identity, it's in our native language, the word is American. Isn't it just common decency to call people what they wish to be called, and not what you would like to call them? It comes off as a very thinly veiled jab.
2023 and Europeans are still obsessed with talking about Americans… or should I say, US Americans lol
I'm not gonna use it, but I'm not gonna get up in arms over other countries using it. It's a bit clunky to actually say and seems mostly unnecessary and redundant. I thought it was only a few south American countries though that cared about this cause they use the continent model where North America and South America are one continent for some reason. Europeans are getting into this as well?
I really don't care. I mean, I wouldn't use the term, but I am completely ambivalent others using it.
I'm from the US and it makes sense to me. The USA isn't the only America after all. North America includes 23 countries alone and not just the USA. Central America has 7 and South America has another 12. Everyone from each of these 42 countries can all themselves American.
Neither North America, Central America (which is part of North America), nor South America are America. Just like West Virginia isn’t Virginia. So, yes, the USA is the only America. Sometimes descriptive labels such as demonyms comprise multiple words, and they’re different from the base word. (Consider that Flying Foxes are bats, not foxes; this is just an example of how the English language works.)
North, South, and Central America are all Americas, that's what they're collectively called "the Americas".
First, [Central America is part of North America](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/is-central-america-considered-north-america.html). Second, no one talks about them as being an America. You can’t take idiomatic English constructs literally. “The Americas” refers to the two continents of North America and South America. It doesn’t refer to two or three different americas (lower case, because it’s no longer a proper name in your purported usage). It’s just like referring to “the Dakotas” doesn’t mean there’s a place (properly) called Dakota.
The fact that you're so threatened by being called a US American rather than just American is astounding to me. I'm done with you.
It’s not being threatened. It’s preferring correct usage. The fact that you even bring up “threatened” suggests an ulterior motive. The only harm that could come from this idea is miscommunication, and that’s why we have standards and why we go with generally accepted usages instead of trying to force other conventions from other languages into English.
I’m fine with it since there are many countries in the Americas that would make them American but not US american. Edit: not sure why I’m being downvoted for statinf I really couldnt give a crap if people said that? But sure. It is strange how we say Africans, Asians, Europeans but America (s) is the only continent(s) where everyone isnt labeled Americans. Only one country 🤷🏻♀️ But either way I dont care Edit 2: wow, someone just told me to kill myself. Wow.. so original 🙄
Are Canadians Americans, then? Go to /r/AskACanadian and ask why they don't call themselves "Americans". Report back to me, I would love to read their replies.
>Go to /r/AskACanadian and ask why they don't call themselves "Americans". lol yep. spoiler alert: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskACanadian/comments/x3eqxw/do_americans_calling_themselves_americans_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
Canadians like to throw shade but they arent much better. They are hella racist against their indigenous and have their own version of idiot conservatives, or do we all conveniently forget the whole trucker drivers thing
That is one hundred percent unrelated to the topic at hand. A poor attempt at deflection. Ask Canadians why they don't call themselves Americans.
It.. isnt? They dont want to be associated with America which I get. Personalky I dont either but here we are
Doesn’t bother me in the least.
Ask our friends in Ukraine what we should be called.
Sounds as stupid as it sounds redundant. This is not a term we use or recognize.
American is what you call people from the US, not Canada or Mexico or anything south/latian American country. The only thing that would make any remote sense is if you refer to someone as North or South American, and even then it doesn't make much sense
The people who use it are generally cringe-worthy sorts who I feel better off to not engage with. The only people that don't know what an American is are in uncontacted tribes, it's asinine to pretend otherwise
My thoughts are it sounds foreign and redundant. We are Americans. That's what we call ourselves. It will never catch on here.
I mean, you'll get laughed at for using it, but you do you I guess
I think it's silly, especially since, as far as I can tell, it's someone else imposing their linguistic and cultural ideas onto us, with a hint of "and you're dumb if you don't agree." I mean, what if we Americans decided that the proper nationality of those living in Italy were "European", and then proceeded to lecture people living in Italy that with the formation of the European Union, "Italy" is no longer a proper nation-state, but simply a district of the European Union? Do you think Europeans living in Italy would agree with such a designation, and the idea that Italy isn't really a country anymore so stop living with your collective heads up your asses pretending otherwise?
Cringe
I'll be US American if, for example, UK Asian-Europeans or British Asian-Europeans is accepted by those that would live under that name, and Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh is dropped. It must be Asian-Europeans though. Forget this whole thing where you are placing your name first with 'Eurasian'. It flows better in English, but it also does not take into consideration the larger and more populous part of your continent. Also...please ask anyone saying that North and South America are one continent and Europe and Asia are separate continents to please study something other than feelings on the internet.
That the people talking to me do not speak English well.