5 ms·
Let's not forget the USA - there is no unambiguous denonym for its inhabitants - despite the protestations of the people who live in the US, people who live all
by Taniwha 9y ago
Let's not forget the USA - there is no unambiguous denonym for its inhabitants - despite the protestations of the people who live in the US, people who live all over the Americas call themselves "American", just like people all over Europe call themselves "European", and people in Africa are "African", and in Asia "Asian"
- vanjoe 9y agoReally? I've never referred to myself as American. North American perhaps, but never American.
- Taniwha 9y agoI've run into people who take great offence at not being considered "American" (I remember a bunch of Colombian guys at WWDC a decade or so ago getting particularly annoyed) The thing is that most people from the US are probably completely unaware that other Americans feel this way
- lmm 9y agoConversely, though, I've known Canadians who get offended at being called "American".
- tomjakubowski 9y agoUSian works for me, although it's hard sometimes to break the "American" habit.
- bitwize 9y agoI'd nominate "yankee" but that word is complicated. To most people outside the USA (see below) it means "person from the USA"; to someone from the southern USA it means "person from the North"; to Northerners it means "New Englander"; and to New Englanders it refers to Boston Brahmin types with roots going back to England itself. So its meaning is roughly "the sort of prototypical American the speaker is not". Additionally in Japan "yankee" is roughly synonymous with "gangsta". It refers to a subculture of school-aged delinquents who wear greaser style pompadours and are prone to get into fisticuffs. The Kunio-kun games (River City Ransom) and the main character of YuYu Hakusho provide examples.
- empath75 9y agoestadounidense
- fian 9y agoStatesider?
- ameliaquining 9y agoI took an informal survey of my international friends, and the general impression I got is that "American" mean "from the US" everywhere except Latin America.
- pluma 9y agoGerman here. "Amerikaner" unambiguously refers to US Americans. I have no idea how I would refer to someone from either of the Americas because I've never had the need to group North America with Latin America -- oh, and also "Nordamerika" typically just means "US and Canada" just like "Europa" typically excludes Russia. Sorry.
- edko 9y agoThe curious thing is that America is just a fraction of North America.
- test1235 9y ago>just like people all over Europe call themselves "European" Except for us Brits
- gregmac 9y agoCanadians most definitely never refer to themselves as "American".