i have a pet peeve about calling the USA, AMERICA. (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

OK, we'll try this again for the slow members of the class. Canada and Mexico are not part of "America" becuase there is no such place as America, geographically speaking. They are part of the North American continent or North America, depending on how you want to phrase it. The United States is also part of "North America".

Pray tell, what does the hypothetical Mexican that everybody keeps writing about, the one whose suspected "bruised feelings" we're all supposed be so worried about, call himself? "American" or "Mexican"?

To repeat: Citizens of all the other nation-states on the two American continents have convenient, easy-to-say deignations based on the names of their countries. (Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians.) So do Americans - it just happens that the name of our country - in contrast to those others - is several words long and only one of those words forms a good designation for the citizens thereor.

This whole thread is just an excercise in "American guilt" We are not being arrogant in using the name that has been applied to us by everyone since before most of the nations of South and Central America existed. We have nothing to apologize for, or to feel guilty about. Mexicans, Canadians, et. al. have no ground for complaint and if any of them "feel" slighted by this that is an irrational emotional response to an imaginary slight and their frickin' problem. Any American who gets all worked up on behalf of the purely imaginary hurt feelings of hypothetical foreign nationals should seek professional help.

Geez, can we make a larger mountain out of this molehill?

If this is such a problem for everybody I suggest that we change the name of the continents. We'll name them for the European explorer who first put the Old and New worlds in contact and name them North and South Columbia. Then everybody can bitch about how arrogant the residents of Bogata are.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Juan Castillo]

Hey, I'm a Texan, we should be our own country anyway!

j/k

 

[DarrenAbes]

As a Canadian, I'll come to Max's defense as well. The comment was not a slight to the "Americans", and that invisibility is probably wise travelling abroad.

The unfortunate truth is that advertising you are American while abroad greatly increases your odds of having a Truck-Bomb parked under your hotel window.

As for terminology. "American" is just fine IMHO. Canadians don't use America in referencing our country or nationality, and I doubt Mexicans do either. "North American" is most commonly followed by "Free Trade Agreement" when uttered up here. Lately it has been known as the NAFTAWCFGBA, North American Free Trade Agreement When Convenient for George Bush's America.

 

[Tommy G]

Darren, you might want to edit that last sentence as there are rules here with regards to political statements.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Is it okay if I use the term: 'merican like the country singers do?

 

[CharlesD]

Hey, I'm a Texan, we should be our own country anyway!

I agree

 

[Lew Crippen]

 

[John Thomas]

this reply thrown in to add to the turds already laid.

 

[Francis Collins]

I think that this tread ought to be locked. It is getting too heated and political.

 

[Steve Christou]

tick...tick...tick...

 

[Max Leung]

Say, when was the earliest known usage of the word "American", in the context of as a citizen of the United States of America? Maybe it was used earlier, before the revolution, as a general catch-all term when the continents were first settled?

Where's Rex Bachmann (did I spell his name right?) when you need him?

 

[TonyD]

it's not getting too political.

john thomas said, "this reply thrown in to add to the turds already laid."

i don't know what that means.

the only other thing was a quick reference to goerge bush.

so if no one else does that we can keep this open.
there have been some funny replies in this thread.
and some have been way too serious.

 

[Iver]

Yee-Ming, I became very aware of the impropriety of the term "Oriental" when somebody vociferously accused me of ethnocentricity (or something else bad) when I used it.

Apparently "Asian" is preferable, in terms of political correctness. This does make sense, in a way since, to say "Oriental," meaning someone living in the Orient, or East, implies that Europe is in the center and Asia, being to the East, is the Orient.

Also, I think when Brits refer to the people you mentioned...

those from the Indian sub-continent (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans).

... they say South Asians.

Lew, you are correct about Mexico. It is part of North America. However, my experience has been that Mexicans are not fond of U.S. citizens calling themselves "Americans" as the Mexicans are also Americans (North Americans, even). It is also fine for an American to call themselves an Estadounidense ("dense" pronounced "den-say" rather than "dense" )

Again, I have nothing against the use of the word American to refer to folks who live in the U.S. I do have a problem with people who are insensitive to the natural feelings which are likely to arise from our fellow Americans, from South America, Central America, and North America, who find it strange for us to simply hijack the word America as if it's our right, simply based on our custom, to appropriate a word that happens to also apply to their countries.

BTW, Mexico is not the full name of the country. It's actually Los Estados Unidos de Mexico. Copycats!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

there have been some funny replies in this thread.
and some have been way too serious.

And some that tried to be both at once. Whether or not they succeeded is in the eye of the beholder. YMMV

I agree that the George Bush line, which is not only gratuitous but stupid, pointless and basically meaningless, has to go. Congratulations to Darren for finding a formulation that insults all American citizens, both those who disagree with the President and those who support him, designating the whole country as "George Bush's America", like he personally owns the place or the mere fact that he's in the White House somehow changes the character of the entire country and its people. Our presidents do not own this country, and they don't have that much impact on our lives. It wasn't "Bill Clinton's America" before the last election, either. These guys are the hired help. We change them every few years. Our country remains our country. If you don't like the treaty the your government negotiated for your country, complain to them.

Regards,

Joe

 

[John_Berger]

Joseph!

 

[Yee-Ming]

Iver, interesting point. On the flip side, the term "Occidental" was always much rarer in use, the only present-day example that comes to mind being Occidental Oil (or whatever that company's full name is).

I suppose it's no more or less "-centric" than China's own Chinese name of "Middle Kingdom/Country" anyway.

But officially, don't citizens of USA have to write "American" in the "nationality" column of any forms anyway?

To digress, since the official name of Britain is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", is it fair to those from Northern Ireland to have to call themselves "British" when Great Britain consists of England, Wales and Scotland?

As for the British usage of "Asian", my recollection when I was last there was there newspaper headlines about how two "Asian" women had died in Hyde Park due to a lightning strike, they'd been standing under a tree for shelter or something, and the tabloids initially made great play on the fact they'd been found holding hands. Later details disclosed they were Pakistani.

And in reference to British Asian politics, they inevitably refer to Bradford et al, where the mayor is of Indian descent. British Chinese are, AFAIK, specifically referred to as Chinese, not Asian. Likewise for Vietnamese. Perhaps a Brit could clarify for us? After all I last lived in Britain over 20 years ago and can't definitively speak for them.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

If only Amerigo Vespucci were alive today to answer this question.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Come to think of it, why isn't the continent North Vespucci, or North Vespuch, and the country the United States of Vespucci, and you guys are Vespuccian?

(Sorry, perhaps I should stop messing about in this thread...)

 

[TonyD]

no, yee-ming. that's good.

 

[Lew Crippen]

It's actually Los Estados Unidos de Mexico

Actually Iver, when I’m in South America and I’m asked where I’m from, I always reply Los Estados Unidos. I don’t ever recall anyone asking if that meant the United States of Mexico or America.

And on the Asian, South Asian, SE Asian, East Asian discussion, I once was in a conversation in Japan where the geographic definition of Asia was put forth by a Brit. A Japanese women said, ‘but that would mean that Japan is Asian!’