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It's a term people use to either be funny, or it's because they're somehow offended that people from USA use the demonym "American" even though there are other
by nkrisc 6y ago
It's a term people use to either be funny, or it's because they're somehow offended that people from USA use the demonym "American" even though there are other countries in the Americas, yet despite the fact that no one else in those countries seems to care because they have their own demonyms they use.
The former are just having a laugh, and the latter are looking for things to be offended by.
I don't know which camp the GP falls into but I'll be charitable and assume they're just being silly.
- kspacewalk2 6y agoI prefer Youessians.
- srg0 6y agoI suppose that any suffix is not culturally neutral. Youessish. Like in British, English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish. Youessan. Like in Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban. Youessese. Asian American. Youessian. Like Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Indian.
- kspacewalk2 6y agoYouessi - like Iraqi, Yemeni
- mijamo 6y agoI don't think you know many people from Latin America. A lot of them will absolutely not like American to refer to the USA only. Especially as the USA imperialism has done so much damage in many places there. It is not as strong as say the Macedonian debate but it is very real.
- ericmay 6y agoSo if I speak to someone from Colombia or Brasil I should expect them to say they are American?
- nkrisc 6y agoThat may be the case, you're not wrong about what the US has done in Latin America. That said, I've never in my life heard anyone from Latin America call themselves American. Now that's just my experience, so I'm open to being proven wrong. When I lived in Costa Rica for a time, I was only ever "Americano" and everyone from there were "ticos" or "costarricense." Though to be fair, Costa Rica has pretty much been spared of American meddling.
- MaurizioPz 6y agoWell I for one (born in Venezuela and moved to Italy) used to be mildly annoyed when italians used the term "americano" to refer people from USA, and used to tell them "I'm also american". In Venezuela I used "estadounidense" [1] and in italian it would be "statunintense" the proper form, but almost nobody uses it. Now I'm used to it and don't mind it anymore and this is the first time I've heard of the term USAian and find it quite amousing but I don't think it will catch on. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/estadounidense https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/estadounidense
- ericmay 6y agoBut wouldn't you be sudamericano? America isn't a continent. We have North America and South America. We typically refer to the grouping of those two continents as 'The Americas', but not America. At least not that I've ever seen. On a side note - maybe it depends on if you are taught a different number of continents? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent) In the U.S. we do 7. Maybe in Venezuela or Brasil they do 5? I guess that's one of the things that confuses me here. If you're from Europe you can be European because that's the continent you're from. If you're from Canada you can be Canadian or North American, but you can't be American because that's not a continent. I mean I guess you technically can, but it's a bit of a lossy term to use. It isn't specific enough. Do people from Bangladesh or Pakistan think of themselves as Asian, or Pakistani? I guess as I see some of this discussion, it strikes me as very arbitrary and resentful, and also not very consistent. > USAian and find it quite amousing but I don't think it will catch on. Yea I saw it and had to do a double take because I thought it was USAsian. I think at least in English it won't catch on because it doesn't flow very well.
- fsckboy 6y agoYou and the people of Latin America are making a language category error though. The people of Latin America speak Spanish (and perhaps Portugese), and the Spanish word "America" means what it does in Spanish. But in English, the word "America" refers to the USA. It doesn't make sense to complain about words in other languages that you don't speak. You acknowledge what America means when you use the English word "Americas" to refer to the regions within North and South America, because in English that is the word to use and has the other meaning. The same logic applies to "football", btw. The vast majority of English speaking people refer to soccer as soccer. That people who speak other languages use a word in their language that sounds like "football" to refer to soccer does not give them standing to sound off on what Australians, Americans, and Canadians call soccer. There is room for the British to bicker about it, but they are a distinct minority among English speakers.
- robertlagrant 6y ago> a word in their language that sounds like "football" to refer to soccer Isn't that word, "football"?
- mindslight 6y agoOr they might be USians themselves, trying to distance themselves from their country being so imperialist.
- thiagoeh 6y agoIn Brazil is usual to hear in more educated circles the denomination "estadunidense", which is essentially the same thing as USAian. Or north-americans, when talking about the culture from the standpoint of Brazilians. It's far from true that no one cares.
- nkrisc 6y agoThat's fair, I might be wrong for sure. I'm still going to call myself American.
- reaperducer 6y agoI don't know which camp the GP falls into but I'll be charitable and assume they're just being silly. You are correct. I have only very rarely in my life given fig one about offending strangers.