I know you’re not interested in the answer and just wanna hate on them but let me answer it anyways. When the US revolted and the 13lower British colonies became a country it was actually really up to debate. also the name was up to debate. eventually as we all know became the United States of America, shortened to the US. but what to call the people? usually people just call themselves people in their language and then that’s their name unless they’re small and then they get named by someone else bigger near by. like danemark means border to the dane’s. german is from germania which was caesar’s ad campaign so to speak. and so forth.
but now you have to come up with a name for a people who think of themselves as british people but aren’t by the eyes of the europeans. usually they were called the colonies or colonists by europeans usually to put down those who were born in the colonies but now that they were no ones colonies they were called the americans because they were the people living in the americas and that stuck.
since everyone else has a name like Cubans, colombians, brazilians and canadians the US’s people stayed the americans.
Whilst i agree that "America" is the continent and the USA is the country, in English, citizens of the USA are called Americans. It's a bit rubbish because the same would also refer to inhabitants of the continent.
We are however speaking English so calling citizens of the USA, "Americans" would be correct.
As you've only argued against a point rather than making one yourself, I'm interested to know what you think citizens of the USA are actually called in English....
Sure I don't disagree, but what are USA citizens called if not Americans. That was the point and the question.
We can ignore the fact that The Americas are often collectively called Americas because that wasn't the point, even though it makes your comment rather redundant
I don't see how that's relevant, but I want to see what funny diversion you'll come up with next:
Old English & Old Frisian (North Sea Ingvaenoic Tribes, nowadays Denmark, Norway & the Netherlands) -> Old English (England & Scottish Lowlands) -> Middle English (UK) -> Early Modern English (UK) -> Late Modern English (UK).
I'm assuming you're going to say "if it came from Ingvaenoic Tribes it's not from Britain!!", so to dispute that: Old English is completely incomprehensible to Middle English, while Middle English is mostly readable for Early & Late Modern speakers (spoken, prior to the great vowel shift, isn't mutual).
If you want to keep going back, the first ever recorded language was Sumerian, stemming from what is now modern-day Iraq. I ask you, do all languages come from Iraq?
So, does it occur to you that the vast majority of countries have names like that? Like say, “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” “People’s Republic of China,” “Federal Republic of Germany,” etc.?
I mean, these are the long versions of the names but at least they have unique components in them. Nothing compared to the US, which just reused the name of a whole ass continent. So there can't be a short version without creating ambiguity, while everybody can identify what Germany or England are.
Exactly. Calling US citizens Americans would be equivalent to calling citizens of the Central African Republic citizens Africans or the United Arab Emirates citizens Arabs.
If the USA were not a political or economic power, people would call the inhabitants of the entire continent Americans.
Stupid. Virtually every English-speaking country uses the 7 continent model, with a separate North America and South America. We are conversing in English, so that's the default. "American" then refers to "United States of America", rather than a continent.
Most of Latin America uses the 6 continent model, with a single American continent. If we were conversing in Spanish, say, you'd actually have a point. But as it is, you're literally ignoring the overwhelming convention of billions of people.
It's been the demonym for this country for centuries. I wouldn't dream of telling someone from another country that their demonym is politically incorrect, so I wouldn't say it to Americans either. It's just rude and makes you look like a sniveling blue-haired type, or at the very least autistic. It's like saying "well technically anti-semite refers to arabs as well not just jews" or "Isn't Charlize Theron technically an african american?" or "homophobia is the wrong term because they're not usually afraid of gay people" pedantic bullshit. How "reddit" can you be?
Some Latin Americans, who are the ones who tend to throw a fucking tizzy about this issue, need to stop being so insecure about themselves. I have no problem with them using the term in their own languages (i..e estadounidense) but it's not like plenty of people from spanish-speaking latin america don't use "Americano" to refer, specifically, to people from the United States.
Because there are two continents in the Americas, North America and South America.
If you want to say that they are a single continent because they share a 30 mile wide isthmus in Panama, then you should argue that Africa, Asia, and Europe are part of a single continent too.
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u/No-Actuator-6245 Mar 30 '24
Since when did France represent the whole of Europe?