In the English language the word American has more than one meaning. The most prevalent is of course the gentilic, but one of the other meanings is indeed "bein

In the English language the word American has more than one meaning. The most prevalent is of course the gentilic, but one of the other meanings is indeed "being native or inhabitant of the American continent." The big problem with this word is that, being USA as influential in the western culture as it is, it helps corrupting the corresponding word in the languages that do have a proper gentilic like French and Spanish. Also, it promotes ignorance among the ignorants (I've met US people thinking America is just and only the country) without a tangible benefit. See http://users.dcc.uchile.cl/~rbaeza/inf/american.html http://users.dcc.uchile.cl/~rbaeza/inf/american.html for a similar view.