USAn USAer

Guest   Thu May 15, 2008 7:50 pm GMT
Why can you say Canadian, Mexican, Chinese, British etc. but never USAn or USAese, USAish... Why only American?
Guest   Thu May 15, 2008 8:16 pm GMT
Because America belongs to US.
Guest   Thu May 15, 2008 9:12 pm GMT
United-States American, or US-American is good to me.
If you like short term you can even say just "US", as it is usually said "latin/latino" for "latin-american".
US politics, US president, US people, etc. is already widely used, and at least you know from what country you are speaking, while saying "American" can mean a Mexican, Brazilian, Canadian thing, etc.
TrollyB   Thu May 15, 2008 10:42 pm GMT
It depends. People in the Unified Kingdom, in Grand Britney, say "North-Statesunitediensian" to refer to people who live south of the Canadigians and north of the Mexicanians. Then there are specific terms, for example Valley Bimbos for Californish girls, Dudes for Californish guys, Salty Stakes for people from Salt Lake City, New Dorks from New York, Utensils from Utah, Virgins from Virginia, Messeduphippies from Mississippi...

I'll be serious now: stop asking why something is not externated in Englesian, just learn it that way if you want to use idiotmatic Englesian. It's AMERICAN, nothing else. Or you'll sound like a derynodiousiner when he advogues a tribblipond.
Guessst   Fri May 16, 2008 1:35 am GMT
"American" cannot mean Canadian. It cannot mean Mexican. It cannot mean Peruvian. If you want to mean it that way, there are two ways normal human beings express it: North American and South American.

American = something or someone from the United States. That's it. There is no room for argument here, unless you want to sound like a total ass.
Upstater   Fri May 16, 2008 2:04 am GMT
Perhaps the preferrred politically correct term is "United Statesian" or "United Statian".

One solution to this problem is to use the name for people from your state. These names are more common for some states than others (New Yorker, Californian, vs. Connecticuter, Massachusettsian).

Unfortunetely, if I said I was a New Yorker, most people here would immediately think I'm from New York City. ( I havent even been in NYC for many years.)

BTW -- We've had many discussions like this already here in the Antimoon forums..
Gurrst   Fri May 16, 2008 2:12 am GMT
Don't confuse people trying to learn English. There is no politically correct term like "United Statesian" people use. 99.999999999999999% of people speaking English do not make this distinction nor have even heard of this argument. It's a totally bizarre case a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people make, and most of them don't even speak English as a first language.

There is no issue. I never even heard of this until I read from people on the internet that people from Brazil were pissed that America meant the United States because that's what they called themselves in Portuguese.

So friggin what? It's English we're talking about. Even in Europe, American = the US. "sono Americano". An Italian will not think you're from Peru or Canada, and if you tried to explain this argument to them, they'd look at you like you're crazy.
Matt   Fri May 16, 2008 8:32 am GMT
Hasn't this been covered before? I am from the UK. I have been to numerous English speaking countries (Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA...) and everyone I have met in those countries refers to people from the USA as Americans.
Rick   Fri May 16, 2008 12:03 pm GMT
Ha ha, it's so easy to see who in this thread is "American". :)

But yeah, the term American would be considered the most appropriate way to refer to someone from the United States whether it's strictly correct or not.

I have heard "United Statesian" used before and another one was "Columbian" (not to be confused with "Colombian"), but i doubt either are in common use anywhere.
Guest   Fri May 16, 2008 1:20 pm GMT
You can call your country America or whatever you like, but the thing is that, doing it, you annoy people from other countries, especially in America. It must be hard to travel arround the world and feel that people hate you just because you are from the States, I suppose that the price you have to pay for beeing so arrogant.
Amabo   Fri May 16, 2008 7:13 pm GMT
I'm Canadian.

As far as I'm concerned, the people who live in the US are Americans.

And further too that, I am perfectly content with this usage.

Next question, please.
Guest   Tue May 20, 2008 6:10 pm GMT
People who live in the US are gringos.
Guest   Tue May 20, 2008 6:14 pm GMT
We call them yankis in Spain (pronounced yankee).
Skippy   Tue May 20, 2008 8:26 pm GMT
Ugh... I hate being referred to as a yankee... To someone from the South, a "yankee" is someone from north of the Mason-Dixon line, as far west as Illinois... It's very derogatory for a Southerner.
Guest   Tue May 20, 2008 8:32 pm GMT
It's a catch-em-all term .I know that it's not very accurate according to what History tells us, but people who live thousands of miles away don't care if a Southerner find "yankee" derogatory or not.