1w ago

What efforts would it take to strip the name Americans from the folks inhabiting the US?

They should be called United Statesians in English. I know États-Uniens is the official name in French.

What is it in other langages? How can we promote such use?

Why am I asking? The US administration is currently a disgrace on the world stage, and I am thinking how it unjustly hurts people from the rest of the American continent.

32 comments

I am thinking how it unjustly hurts people from the rest of the American continent.
Here in Canada, we call people from the USA "Americans". There's no confusion, and if you called a Canadian "American" they would correct you immediately. If you explained you meant it in reference to the continent of North America they would still insist that you don't. It may be technically correct, but it would be frowned upon. We appreciate your consideration, but the word is firmly their word, at least to us. "North American" would be fine, though.
- I used to work with a Canadian (From Vancouver, iirc) who used to emphasize "North American" when people made the wrong assumption. I guess it makes sense once the focus is on region/continent instead of country.
- Also Canadian. Europeans are weird about this. They've always been Americans to us and it doesn't refer to the continent.
  
  This may be a proximity thing. A word can have a different meaning in context, and when the context spans a continent-length border, it can be easy to see it as a global default.
  Take the example of the word "Asian": An Australian using the term (advisedly, because it's often (mis)used or interpreted as a pejorative) is probably talking about someone from South East Asia. A Brit using the same word usually means someone from the Indian subcontinent.
  I realise there's no border proximity with that example, but if you consider immigration and the percentage of population each Asian group makes up in each place, that physical proximity is why the word means what it does where it does.

There's literally no reason to. Colloquially, nobody thinks American refers to both continents, plus the other countries already have something else to call themselves to differentiate.
- For now. I figured we ought to start somewhere, and now is probably the best time after yesterday
  
  Don't fix things that aren't broken. There are plenty of broken things to actually work on instead.

Note shat while États-uniens is sometimes used in French, it's not really used beside some left wing intellectual wanting to brag about America being the continent and sometimes sounds mildly anti American but not too much
While it's indeed a better word than American, one can also argue that USA aren't the only United States as a larger federation e.g United Mexican states so you can make the same argument about états uniens

Probably just need an executive order from the current U.S. president to rename the country "United States of Trump". Going forward citizens would be called Trumpians.
Google will happily go ahead and update Google Maps with the new name.

Realistically? The breakup/balkanization of the US. Which is a nonzero and growing possibility by the look of things here.

I say "US Americans" to differentiate while traveling, works well.
easy to say, easy to understand.

Similarly in Spanish OP, we say estadounidense as the demonym for something from USA. We often use americano interchangeably though, but that gives room for confusion sometimes.
I think you should have posted this in Unpopular Opinions hah. I don't give much weight to it and, as long as everyone knows what you mean by American when you say it is fine, so I don't necessarily agree with your opinion that it hurts the rest of the continent. But as far as semantics go we both know the question is about as old as the country itself.
We're gonna get downvoted to hell. See you there :)

"USian" just sounds better and not horrid to me . Normalise calling them USians
- Does that make the rest of the world Themians?
  
  After all, we're only ordinary men
- Already is normal on mastodon
- I'm pronouncing it like Asian, but with a U. How about everyone else?

I mean, "Yanks" is right there.
Or "septics", if you wish to be politically correct.
/jk
Writer H. L. Mencken collected a number of proposals from between 1789 and 1939, finding terms including Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, and United Stater.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States

The only one country and citizen name used in Japan outside of very formal contexts is 'America' アメリカ. You will occasionally see 米 (bei = rice) used in some contexts, particularly with the kanji of another country as an abbreviation for things regarding those two countries (日米野球... Japanese-American baseball...). Finally, you have アメリカ合衆国 which is the formal name and used on paperwork and means something more like 'America peoples together country' somewhat literally, but stands in for the US of A. Technically, there's also 亜米利加 which is the old way to write it phonetically using kanji without really meaning something about the system of government or anything (it's just a me ri ka).

i definitely agree with the sentiment, but "USians" looks very awkward and "youessians" is even more awkard to say. i'd rather get rid of the name america altogether, both for the country and the two continents, and use indigenous names for everything instead of honoring someone involved in early colonization. granted there are many indigenous languages between both continents so finding something that works for and respects everyone might be difficult but if we could it's two birds with one stone

"americans" is a bad name but it's more specific than "united statesians". But I would fully support dissolving that country and founding a new one (or multiple) with a better name.
- I'm not OP. As someone whose native language isn't English, I agree with OP that something like "united statesians" would be more specific than just "american" to refer to someone belonging to the US. A united statesian would be only from US, whereas someone just american could be referring to anyone in the American continent - both North and South.
  And that's exactly how Spanish language deals with the issue. Native Spanish speakers understand that colloquially, american means someone from US and wouldn't call a Canadian or a Brazilian an American. However it does lend itself to confusion, it is a question often raised by children when learning adjectives, and as far as adjectives go, things other than people (animals for example) usually follow the regular rules of language. Finally, Spanish speakers also say "united statesians" ( * estadounidense* ) instead of "american" when referring to people living in US.
  
  There are other united states than the United States of America, for example The United Mexican States (Mexico)

Each of the 50 states has a somewhat unique name, and residents of the state therefore have a unique demonym. Use those instead?
If that's too many names, Colin Woodward has identified 11 culturally-distinct nations in the US. That would actually promote a lot better understanding of why the country is the way it is. I'd be a Yankee.
Changing the collective name demonym Americans would be confusing during the transition, and for what benefit? Is this really a concern for residents of other countries in the Americas? Are Colombianos really scrambling to be called Americans?
Instead, I suggest taking Pres. Sheinbaum's suggestion, if you want to do something: Call the continent Mexican America. Everybody would know what you mean from context right away. No confusion, no need to get anybody else to play along.

There are bigger issues right now. We can't afford food and you want the administration to spend time taking away names? It's hypocritical. The administration you're trying to punish is doing exactly the same thing, moron. Begone.
- Eye for an eye dumbass? Fire with fire dickhead? Please note I usually don't curse but wished to illustrate my point.

32 comments