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I think most people worldwide basically know what you mean when you say American, but are actually referring to a person from the US, via context. It is pragmat

I think most people worldwide basically know what you mean when you say American, but are actually referring to a person from the US, via context. It is pragmatic label. They aren’t from the US so they don’t have to worry about some identity based thing or feeling like they are stealing the name from two continents, for their one country. On the other hand, some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting If the folks who got us into this mess with label obsession move on to something less charged like USian, that’s probably for the net good.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  if the language police want to tell Americans what they're allowed to call themselves and expect any actual adoption they had better come up with a better word than "USian". How do you even pronounce that? Oosh-an? But also sure, telling Americans to rename things, that hasn't caused ANY backlash now resulting in the renaming of huge bodies of water to stupid things, keep up the cultural dictates, it's totally working!
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    The whole enterprise of constantly renaming things is stuoid. But there are groups on the idiot left (LatinX, USian, xey/xem) and right (freedom fries, Gulf of America) who enjoy it. Between gender and race-based language policing and a nationality-based one, I think the latter is a safer place to constrain them.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    I think ultimately we won’t be able to refer to anything without offending somebody, given how polarized the US is. Of course my side’s backlash is totally reasonable, actually, it is an inevitable response that was caused by the other side trying to force some top-down change via the language police.
deleted 2y ago
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School-Cotton 2y ago
> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days I guarantee less than 1% of Americans feel like this or are even thinking about the issue at all.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days. So it isn’t surprising that we’d be the ones objecting If the folks who got us into this mess with label obsession move on to something less charged like USian, that’s probably for the net good.

dingnuts 2y ago
if the language police want to tell Americans what they're allowed to call themselves and expect any actual adoption they had better come up with a better word than "USian". How do you even pronounce that? Oosh-an? But also sure, telling Americans to rename things, that hasn't caused ANY backlash now resulting in the renaming of huge bodies of water to stupid things, keep up the cultural dictates, it's totally working!
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  The whole enterprise of constantly renaming things is stuoid. But there are groups on the idiot left (LatinX, USian, xey/xem) and right (freedom fries, Gulf of America) who enjoy it. Between gender and race-based language policing and a nationality-based one, I think the latter is a safer place to constrain them.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  I think ultimately we won’t be able to refer to anything without offending somebody, given how polarized the US is. Of course my side’s backlash is totally reasonable, actually, it is an inevitable response that was caused by the other side trying to force some top-down change via the language police.

deleted 2y ago

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School-Cotton 2y ago

> some of more conscientious people in the US are feeling a little awkward about the name these days I guarantee less than 1% of Americans feel like this or are even thinking about the issue at all.