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The use of "American" as a stand-alone term, for better or for worse, means a person from the United States. It persists largely because of the difficulty in pr
by intopieces 14y ago
The use of "American" as a stand-alone term, for better or for worse, means a person from the United States. It persists largely because of the difficulty in producing an ajectival (demonym) from the term United States. Questioning it now, when there is clearly no real confusion (like, for example, Indian/American Indian/Native American/Indian American) is prescriptivist and hair-splitting.
- _quasimodo 14y ago> Questioning it now, when there is clearly no real confusion [...] is prescriptivist and hair-splitting. Probably. But it was the first thing that sprang to my mind while reading the article. In an article titled "We Aren't The World" i would have expected a bit more caution.
- Turing_Machine 14y agoThe United States of America is the only country that has America in its name. Thus, Americans for short. People who live in the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos) are called Mexicans for the same reason.