4 ms·
US-ians are typically referred to as Americans...
by mauricio 17y ago
US-ians are typically referred to as Americans...
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- andresmh 17y agoAmerica is a continent :)
- Devilboy 17y agoTwo continents even!
- furyg3 17y agoThankfully we snatched up the "American" TLD early on.
- wheels 17y agoThis has somehow become a cause célèbre for native Spanish speakers, but it's simply not accurate. The correct translation from the English "American" (or German "Amerikaner") to Spanish is "estadounidense", not "americano". This would be like English speakers correcting Spanish speakers for using "pretender" and not meaning "a faker". As for the continents themselves, it just depends on who's doing the teaching. English speaking countries define North and South America as separate continents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number_of_continents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number_of_continents
- davidw 17y agoInteresting. Italian has 'americano', which is sort of the common way of putting things, even if not entirely correct. 'statiunitense', similar to the spanish word you cite, is the more formal term. It is however, an unwieldy word that's mostly limited to news or official things, and 'americano' is what I am to most people here.
- wheels 17y agoThe more informal Spanish version would be "norteamericano", which also packs some odd ambiguities, since it is mostly a reference to people from the US. The bit I was digging into there, by inference (not necessarily clear for those not familiar with Spanish) is that because North and South America are taught to be one continent in Spanish, and "americano" references the peoples from that aggregate, Spanish speakers (mostly Latin-Americans) have a habit of correcting English speakers in online forms when they use the word "American" to refer to people from the US.