Calling US Citizens Americans? Not right to me

[gsdx]

What gives is I had a brilliant insight which could permanently put this argument to rest.
Not that it will, since there are some people who have staked their lives on sticking with calling people of the USA Americans, no matter what.

Really, though, watch television. You hear people in American programmes calling the United States 'America' and its citizens 'Americans' all the time. You can't tell me that, when the game show hosts say "Good evening America!" or, when a question mentions something like "47% of Americans yadda yadda yadda," they're including Canada and Mexico.

That's probably why Canadians don't like to be called 'Americans'. We're not.

 

[gsdx]

Gameshow hosts and Jerry Springer show guests aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Indeed. But, when members of JUB mention 'Americans', who are they talking about? Certainly not me.

Citizens of the US have been called 'Americans' throughout my entire life, and long before that as well. I don't have a problem with that. And I don't have a problem with the US being called 'America'.

When people around the world hear the words 'America' or 'American', there is only one place and one people they think about.

As far as I'm concerned, the only alternative to calling you 'American' would be to call you a 'United States of American', and that would be as silly as you calling me a 'Dominion of Canadian' when Canada was known as the 'Dominion of Canada'.

As I said earlier, the US is the only country in North America with the word 'America' in its name. You're entitled to use 'American'.

 

[VanHiscers]

I tried looking for another thread with this topic, but couldn't find it. Anyway as i was posting on another thread this came into my mind, and I thought it would be interesting. I currently live in Mexico City, but I have lived in many different countries and I come from a very mixed background. I have thought about this a lot, and I think it is insulting to other American countries (North, Central, and South) for US citizens to call themselves American, as if they were the official "Americans".

I believe most people from the US do it because it's easy and they're used to, but still it kinda bothers me 'cause some people do it with a feeling of superiority (btw I have no inferiority issues, that's not the problem). The other day as I arrived on a flight from Mexico City to New York I was greeted with a "Welcome to America" (it was not said in a nice way), and it bothered me because I LIVE IN AMERICA!

Anyway, I hate being whiny, but I had to post about it. What do you think?

And btw this is not meant to become a thread of America vs. the US. Most people from the US are cool.

When I just started to learn English in high school, I was told "in America" equaled to "in the United States", however, as I had encountered more native speakers, I realised that it was not right, because America is the name of the countinent, using it to refer the US would confuse people, that's why people say "Les Etats-Unis" and "Los Estados Unidos" even in spoken French and Spanish, and of course, more and more native English speakers have started to use "the United States" for daily chat.

Nevertheless, when we want to refer to US citizens, we still call them Americans, not only because the word "America" is in the full name of the country, I think, but because it's the best word, for none of the rest of the countries in the continent America was named after the continent itself.

So if we shouldn't call US citizens Americans, what shold we call them? Unitedstaters? C'mon, that sounds stupid.

 

[Apollo]

That's because 'Americans' is what you call yourselves, and it makes perfect sense to me. Yours is the only country in North American which has 'America' in its name.

The argument that the citizens of Canada, the United States, and Mexico are all Americans is moot, because we aren't. We are all North Americans, but only those citizens of the United States can call themselves 'Americans'.

We are 3 distinct countries, yet, when one says the word 'American', Canada or Mexico are not the first countries people think of. There's only one country which comes to mind.

Canada and Mexico are not part of 'America'. we are part of North America. There is a huge difference.

And there are all those countries in Central America and South America. What about them? Do we call them 'American', too. If we're going to argue that all North Americans should be referred to as 'American', then we must extend that to include the rest of the Western Hemisphere. As ridiculous as it sounds, that's what we would have to do.

If you go back in the thread, you will see I have already made that arguement. Canadians and Mexicans aren't Americans, they are North Americans. To actually take offense to someone calling themselves Americans is dumb, because we are Americans, then North American.

Sometimes stupid people need to be educated, but I don't think he ever learned.

 

[Apollo]

Indeed. But, when members of JUB mention 'Americans', who are they talking about? Certainly not me.

Citizens of the US have been called 'Americans' throughout my entire life, and long before that as well. I don't have a problem with that. And I don't have a problem with the US being called 'America'.

When people around the world hear the words 'America' or 'American', there is only one place and one people they think about.

As far as I'm concerned, the only alternative to calling you 'American' would be to call you a 'United States of American', and that would be as silly as you calling me a 'Dominion of Canadian' when Canada was known as the 'Dominion of Canada'.

As I said earlier, the US is the only country in North America with the word 'America' in its name. You're entitled to use 'American'.

gsdx, I am going to help you out. He is trolling, don't engage anymore. I don't really know what happened to unclean in the last few weeks, but this is what he has been doing. He knows very well what you are argueing, he is just getting added enjoyment out of your frusturation.

 

[Chalchalero]

I need to be enlightened on Mexican diplomatic history, but I believe that "Mexico" was used for centuries to refer to the same region (generally speaking) and people who use the formal designation Estados Unidos Mexicanos today. By contrast, USA was the first and only name taken by the USA when that country declared its independence from England.

In the newspapers around the Spanish-speaking world, the president of Mexico is the president of Mexico, not the president of the United States of Mexico. But the president of the USA is the president of the United States.

I do not disagree with you here.

The poster to whom I was responding made the point that, as America is part of the official name for the United States of America, it would seem logical that citizens of that country be called Americans as opposed to citizens of, say Mexico, which does not make any mention of America in its official name at all, and which in fact derives from the Mexica a Nahua Aztec tribe who in the 14th Century had their capital at Mexico-Tenochtitlan, and from whence the Spaniards began to call that area Mexico.

One must also remember that, until 1810, Mexico formed the nucleus of what was actually officially known as Nueva España, and was not even an independent entity until 1821.

To make matters more confusing, however, their "Declaration of Independence" of 1813 was officially called the Acta Solemne de la Declaración de Independencia de la América Septentrional, or the Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America.

So that the resulting territory, which at the time included the territory extending as far north as the 42nd parallel was to be considered for a time by the Mexicans to be Northern America.

Interestingly, however, when this newly independent nation finally achieved independence and recognition, it did so under the name of the Mexican Empire, and not the Northern American Empire, thereby demonstrating the preference for the Mexican rather than American identity.

This was followed soon after by the First Republic of Mexico, and so on. So that the Mexicans have never as a people identified themselves as American in any way other than an official, but only briefly used term to name their new entity in the Declaration of Independence in 1813. Since Spain never recognised the independence of this entity, but did later recognise the independence of the Itúrbide Empire in 1821, it was never technically a recognised term.

 

[gsdx]

If you go back in the thread, you will see I have already made that arguement.

Oh, undoubtedly. I didn't bother reading the entire thing because I could remember the first run-through. I only read it from the resurrection.

 

[LilBit]

On a related note, does anyone get offended by the name "Central African Republic"? I mean, it's not the only republic in central Africa.