Maybe this is a regional thing but I’ve always called it the US
You must log in or register to comment.
I use “the U.S.” or “States”.
There’s more than one America.
But not more States, united or not…?
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a fair amount. If I say, “I’m from the States.”, people knew that meant the USA.
I refer to it as “the US”, but refer to myself as an “American.”
I’m a US citizen and lived there most of my life but refuse to call myself American. I’d rather call myself after my home state or country of birth, but saying you’re from the US is an embarrassment. That country never did anything for me anyways, I spent my life fighting it
I no longer live in the US
To add to the confusion. The Americas (or America) comprise the landmasses of North and South America in the Western Hemisphere
People living in North and South America (or the Americas) can also be called American or Americans if the were referring to the landmass.
Strangely the United States IMO is the only country that seems to indicate the landmass its situated on when using the full name, the United States of America. Not the mention the indication of a union of individual states.
Several single-word English alternatives have been suggested over time, for example Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, and United Stater.
Saying someone is a United Statesian or Statesian is probably the closest to how other countries like Canada (Canadian) or Mexico (Mexican) refer to themselves.
Vespucciland -> Vespuccian.
You do know it is actually named “the United Mexican States”, right? The name of the US is simply bad from the beginning and sometimes you can’t fix bad. Unless they take over all of the Americas, I guess. Then it’s a good name. Bad move, but good name.
Several single-word English alternatives have been suggested
Some of these make sense, but several of them would only refer to a specific area in the U.S. (e.g. Washingtonian) or are really out of left field (e.g. Fredonian).
I’m assuming Washingtonian would be refering to the man, not the state that refers to the man. I mean, it’s a silly name, but not for the reason you state.
Thats’s cuz English Language sucks.
In Chinese Language for example: A 美國人 (American (Country)) and a 美洲人 (American (Continent)). But in English both are “American”.
Also so many syllabels converying so few info.
Literally 4 syllabels for “American”
But “美國人” or “美洲人” are both 3 syllabels and already contains [America-Country Person] or [America-Continent Person]
Sorry, no offense to English speakers, but as a polyglot, I just had to comment this xD
All languages convey information at roughly similar rates. Those with less information per syllable tend to say more syllables per minute. It’s a fascinating area of linguistics!
All natural languages have ambiguities where the meaning of a word depends on context due to changes over time.
“This is America! I’ll call it whatever I want!”
I use America a lot
When I hear the word “America”, I always have the mental image of someone that speaks English in a non-American (or even non-Anglosphere) accent, and that this person either really likes America or really hates The US, no in between. Like sometimes I picture a person saying “America” in a heavy russian accent I think it just sounds so funny. I think I watched too many movies and I just like the russian accent… it sounds very intimidating and that’s why it had that sort of “cool factor”.
Also, I kinda mix both depending on how my brain is thinking. Sometimes I think my thoughts in Chinese and the “美國” automatically converts into English as “America”, cuz nobody says “合眾國” (United States) in Chinese (at least not in the variants/“dialects” that I know of), cuz it feels like a generic term like “The Republic”, doesn’t make a lot of sense unless referring specifically to domestic politics.
As a Naturalized American Citizen, I sometimes feel like the term “American Citizen” feels like a wrong term, and the term “US Citizen” feels more “correct” to say.
I think that in Chinese, sometimes I hear “民國” (shortened from the full term 中華民國) to refer to ROC and I think “共和國” (shortened from the full term 中華人民共和國) can similarly be used similar to refer to PRC, when used in the context of Chinese history.
That’s just not true.
In my country you can know someone’s politics just by knowing if they call people from the USA americanos or estadounidenses.
estadounidenses
people actually use this in conversation?
When they aren’t imperialist bootlickers.
ps: In Portuguese, United States is Estados Unidos - hence estadounidense.
Oh I understand the word, it just seems like a lot of syllables.
I use them interchangeably. 🤷
Could be regional, but I hear it quite often.
There are some instances where it feels more correct to say US, but for everyday use I probably say America more.
I’ve noticed this too but it seems like a left vs right thing. But never “the USA”
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media. Or they refer to themselves as “the world” like in “this icecream is the best in the world” (without having visited any other country for a significant time to be able to compare). In Europe, US Americans are referred to by different names: the popular „yanks“, the German “Amis” (die spinnen doch, die Amis), depends on the country. The prevalence of new names is increasing rapidly, e.g. Trumpists, US twerks, dropkicks.
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media.
There isn’t really a better demonym, and certainly none in common usage… USians? US-American (as you mentioned)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
I use both as well as USA and united states.
It’s a question of shorthand and relative distance to the country. In most European languages, the spelling equivalent of America refers to the country by default. The continent as an entity doesn’t get mentioned that much and when it does either context gets you there or a regional attribute like a cardinal direction or central. In my experience this applies to British English as well. “The United States” is often more cumbersome in translation and might require grammatical inflection when used in a local language - and confusingly could refer to Mexico as well. Funny enough though some languages adopted “USA” as another way to refer to the country, even if in translation this should get you a different letter combination.
Because of the dominance of the English in the United Kingdom, a lot of continental Europeans lazily refer to the UK as their version of “England.” Might be Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, a channel island or what have you. We gave up in trying to distinguish. People and how they call places are like that. Quiet understanding beats accuracy.
