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> USian American. Please avoid the childish term "USian" unless you're going to commit to calling people from South Africa "SAian" too.
by nozzlegear 6mo ago
> USian
American. Please avoid the childish term "USian" unless you're going to commit to calling people from South Africa "SAian" too.
- a_victorp 6mo agoTo be fair, "american" could refer to anything made in the American continent (North, Central and South America)
- bentley 6mo agoIn some languages, but not really in English. Convention in the cultures of the Anglosphere is that the world comprises seven continents, and the Americas comprise two of them, not one. And in English, both formal and informal, “American” is generally considered the demonym of the United States of America, not the Americas. Although I call myself estadounidense in Spanish (an odd term—why don’t people from Estados Unidos Mexicanos count?), the equivalent English term is “American,” not “United Statesian.”
- nozzlegear 6mo agoNot in English.
- tpmoney 6mo agoAnd USian could refer to folks from Mexico (and at prior points in history a number of other countries), so it's hardly unambiguous.
- stkdump 6mo agoWho are you to make rules for others to follow?
- nozzlegear 6mo agoI'm citing a rule, not making one. American is in the dictionary, used by the UN, recognized by everyone and their dog as the proper demonym for citizens of the United States. Who are you to question that authority and replace the proper demonym with a neologism?
- stkdump 6mo agoI didn't. Languages aren't defined by dictionaries. If they were they would not have come into existence in the first place and they wouldn't evolve the way they do.