"America" is a perfectly reasonable nickname

[shanex]

I've heard a lot of grumbling over the last few years about Americans calling America "America". Some people believe it's somehow arrogant of us to do that, because it shares a name with the continent we're on

Comments

[poxy_report]

I had never thought about it before. Ever since I was old enough to know that there was an America, I have only ever known of it as "America". Anyone who's complaining should find something more worthwhile to complain about.

[lietya]

Because people only speak of "America/American" in English. ;)

I can only speak to Spanish myself, but it's not uncommon to refer to either continent as "America" [accent over the "e"] singular, nor to call a citizen of either *continent* "americano." Also, a person from the USA is "estadounidense" as well as "Americano."

This may seem like nitpicking, but since the people using this language include residents of one of the two disputed continents, it seems reasonable to grant that their usage may have some relevance in the matter. (It is, for example, fairly typical for a Spanish-speaking resident of Latin America to label it as simply "America.") If your intent was to limit this objection to English-speaking peoples, for the purposes of the argument you've summarily written out of existence a fairly sizable percentage of the actual occupants of those two continents.

[shanex]

Then I'll happily add the limitation "If you're speaking English" to the use of the nickname.

[lietya]

That works! Very gracious of you.

[shanex]

Well it's to distinguish from UK English. color/colour sort of stuff.

estadounidenses

[anonymous]

I'm not sure which sounds worse, really. "UnitedStatesian" or American. And what about the denizens of the former United states of soviet russia (I think that that's what it stood for). Should they have got all pissy 'cos "What about estadounidense meaning russian (or georgian or ukranian...) instead of yank?"

The people who seem to get most upset are the canadians, 'cos people lump them in as americanas as well and they don't wanna be yanks.

There is at least one other united states of something or other, I think, but I can't remember which it is.

[cyan_blue]

Well, it's possible for names to have multiple meanings.

I say "I'm from New York," meaning the city, but that doesn't negate the fact that someone from, say, Utica, can also say that they're from New York (meaning the state).