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"...I think people just don't expect that the US would treat people so much worse than we do..." The US would be in much better shape if your expectation was c
by yaddayadda 13y ago
"...I think people just don't expect that the US would treat people so much worse than we do..." The US would be in much better shape if your expectation was correct. Sadly, many Americans [1] think that tipping is a good thing for servers because if they work hard then they'll get good tips.
[1] I've lived in the USA almost my entire life, and have never understood why "we" are "Americans" when there are many, many other countries on both American continents that aren't "Americans". Why is there not a term for us that is more accurate and less Americentric (wait, really?).
- pjlegato 13y agoScare quotes are unnecessary; nobody would confuse you with a cultural imperialist. The country is called "The United States of America," so its people are "Americans." Similarly, people from "The United States of Mexico" (yes, that's its real full name) are called "Mexicans." Languages evolve as an emergent property of people who speak them. Language usage is not subject to revision or control by self-appointed intellectual fairness monitors who unilaterally arrogate to themselves such an authority. Linguists call this practice "prescriptivism," and it is widely denigrated as (ironically) an imperialist tactic used by the power class to enforce their social position. However, the principle itself is not limited to any particular political orientation; leftist prescriptivism is just as unsupportable in a linguistic sense as imperialist prescriptivism is.
- GFischer 13y agoWell, we call ourselves Americans too :) (here in South America), and we call people from the USA "Estadounidenses". You might see on many left-wing president's speeches, they start with "Hermanos Americanos" ("American Brothers"), which definitely does NOT include the USA :P .