this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Well, everybody born in the american continent is technically "american" too, including Central and South America. Is there a specific term in english for these people?

Edit: Thanks for all your answers, especially the wholesome ones and those patient enough to explain it thoroughly. Since we (South Americans) and you (North Americans) use different models/conventions of continent boundaries, it makes sense for you to go by "Americans", while it doesn't for us.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (5 children)

In Australia we call them cunts.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You call everyone Cunts though.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Australia, you call your mates cunt and cunts mate

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Not just down under, if I call you "friend" then I'm pissed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (11 children)

The proper term is American.

everybody born in the american continent is technically “american” too

The implied context of your question is in English.. In the English-speaking world, there is no American continent. People from North America are North Americans; people from South America are South Americans. People from the United States of America are American. There is no ambiguity. There is also no good term to collectively describe everyone from the Americas but there’s also rarely any need to discuss that.

I consider terms such as “USonian” and whatnot to be highly offensive. Nobody should tell a people what they are allowed to call themselves in their own language just because the same word means something else in another language. It would be like telling French people they’re not allowed to call their arm a bras because it refers to an article of clothing in English. Other languages where America means something else already have their own terms for people from the US. English, however, has no real ambiguity except that caused by those trying to shame Americans for calling themselves Americans.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"highly offensive" lol wow chill out bud. It's weird but doesn't bother me at all. Let em call me whatever they want in whatever language they have.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In the English-speaking world, there is no American continent.

I didn't know that, thanks.

Nobody should tell a people what they are allowed to call themselves in their own language

Look man, I'm not american and I didn't ask the question to create some debate about the ethics or whatsoever. I just wanted to know if there was a specific word for that.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

People from North America are North Americans; people from South America are South Americans. People from the United States of America are American. There is no ambiguity.

Thank you for eloquently responding to the pedantry underlying OP's question.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (9 children)
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Only one country on those countries has the word "America" in its name.

It's commonly understood by all but the most pedantic that "americans" refers exclusively to inhabitants of the USA.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

North and South America are so big and diverse that there's really no usage for the term "American" being used to refer to everyone on both continents. US just took the term for themselves and no one really cared enough to complain

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Spanish speaking nations complain. They don't mean USA when they say Americano

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay, but most people in the US wouldn't call themselves Americano.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Language rules (in English at least) are descriptive not prescriptive. They try to explain why Americans are called Americans, not determine what they're called. They're called Americans, whether or not it's logical, or the ideal descriptor, or fits with other names, that's what they're called.

Also most English speaking countries don't have an "American" continent, they have North and South America as separate continents, so you would say someone is North or South American to refer to the continent, not just American. Similar to how some people consider Eurasia a single continent but very few people would identify as Eurasian.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (8 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To add a bit of context, it isn't arrogance or something that drives us to use "American" as a demonym, it's just the linguistic norm. I don't find any of the other names offensive (except seppo, but that one is meant to offend me), but most of us would probably do a double take at the term "USican" or "USian." Virtually all of us would accept Yankee.

Further reading: the full name of Mexico is the United Mexican States. If we wanted to be pedantic, we could say that using the reference to the US would be ambiguous, as they too are technically a US.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I like to call them Muricans. Sure, it may sound super similar to "Americans", but it's different enough to sorta make things clearer.

I'm joking. This idea is horrible.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (10 children)

"American" is the official name, though throughout history attempts have been made to find alternatives. You can read more on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States

The only officially and commonly used alternative for referring to the people of the United States in English is to refer to them as citizens of that country.[18] Another alternative is US-American,[19] also spelled US American.

Several single-word English alternatives for American have been suggested over time, especially Usonian, popularized by architect Frank Lloyd Wright,[20] and the nonce term United-Statesian.[21]

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.[22] Names for broader categories include terms such as Western Hemispherian, New Worlder, and North Atlantican.[23][24][25]

Nevertheless, no alternative to "American" is common in English.[18]

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Nonce term?? Does that mean something different where you are?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

The simple answer is really, no. Colloquially if you say "American" you're talking about someone from the USA. We'll further segregate ourselves into the States we're from, which isn't that different a distinction between "European" and "German".

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On a phone, or by yelling.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Honestly, Yankee is probably the best. Some southerners won’t like it, and westerners will probably be confused, but we all know it means American and it’s the only real term for one of us that doesn’t lend the question “and why do we call you this and not people from the United States of Mexico this”. Our country’s name is unfortunately extremely generic.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is definitely not the universal term all americans would go by. Many even find it offensive.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (10 children)

The sovereign people of any nation have a right to call themselves what they please. People of the US decided on 'American' long before the Internet was a thing and Latin America people got pissed off. US intervention in Latin America is a stain in history, but this is categorically dumb. US citizens call themselves Americans because it's in the name. Literally. Canadians don't call themselves Americans and never will. This is dumb argument. Respectfully.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (16 children)

First off, this wasn't supposed to be an argument, just a question. My native language has a specific word for them (and some other languages have too) and I got curious if english itself had such a thing.

Latin America people got pissed off

Maybe it's because people say "America" and everybody instantly thinks of the USA, even though you're just another country in the whole continent? For these people you are stealing the word "american" and changing its meaning. People from Asia have the word "asian", people in Europe got "european", people in Africa got "african", but we? We don't have a meaningful word anymore. And I'm not saying it's your fault or even it's a fault of your founding fathers. I'm just trying to tell you why these people get mad.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

US-Amerikaner

US-Americans

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's always been funny to me when latin Americans get pissy at the term American being used to describe the country who's president is Biden ( said with love as mx) . They always try to correct Americans to "estados unidenses" United Statean. Which in my opinion doesn't work for 3 reasons. First name recognition most of the world associate Americans with 'merica. 2nd it's a difficult set of words for Anglo speakers especially vs Americano. Thirdly there are actually 2 countries thats proper name include "United States" those are united states of American and United States of Mexico, who colloquially are known as America and Mexico respectively.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

~~There's also United States of Brazil~~.

But you've got "Mexican" and "Brazilian" for both of those countries that include United States in their proper names.

I'd continue to say "United statean" in Spanish because that's an accepted name in the Spanish language. There's no confusion to what country you're referring to.

But in English it is a lost battle. If you mean to include people from the entire continent, you'd have to say "American, as in the continent".

Edit: The current official name of Brazil is Federative Republic of Brazil.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

America is 2 continents, it'd be easier to say North American/South American. There is rarely a reason to lump both continents together. No one refers to people from Europe or Asia as Eurasians

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Judging from playing video games in EU lobbies, "Hamburger"?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Treasonous Colonial

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

U.S.A-holes

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As an American, I don't really give a crap what nationality someone calls me as long as they're not being rude. I honestly identify as a Floridian anyway. So, even if I met other Americans overseas, I'd think of them as from their state or cultural area (Plains, Appalachia, Southwest, etc.).

I don't expect people outside of the US to know the difference even though the US supposedly dominates the world with media. I don't know much about the vast majority of other countries, including England. All I know is that people from Liverpool are apparently bollocks...whatever that means.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

In Italian he/she would be called statunitense, statunitensi for they.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

While technically correct, I've never heard a Brazilian refer to themselves as "American" when they intended to mean South American. Linguistically, when you say "American" you're talking about a citizen of the United States, not just any person from the western hemisphere. And if you're talking about a specific continent (North America, Central America, South America) you're going to be specific about it. A Brazilian would say "I'm South American" when referring to their continent.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Idk about everybody else, but you can call me Michael (or kase, obv) :)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
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