Does any other country in North or South America other the the US refer to themselves as Americans. If not, why do some people take offense to US citizens thinking we can use it to describe our nationality?
It’s just used to describe which country you’re from.
In Spanish (which a significant portion of the rest of the inhabitants of North and South America speak), we’re often referred to as “estadounidense” (roughly “United-States-ian”) or “norteamericano” (“North American”). In my personal experience, it’s not uncommon for Latin Americans to express the sentiment that it’s a bit presumptuous to claim the somewhat grandiose title of “American” for ourselves. I’d usually point out that “norteamericano” didn’t do a good job of distinguishing us from Canadians, and “estadounidense” was ambiguous because Mexico is officially the “United Mexican States” in response.
Nice article.
I’ve never heard of anyone taking offense to it. It’s a big world out there - out of 7B+ people, there’s surely at least one disgruntled misanthrope who has nothing better to complain about than the adjective we use to describe ourselves or various aspects of our country - but is the number of people who take offense to it meaningfully large?
I’ve heard it several times on national TV. Seems ridiculous to me too but the above article probably wouldn’t have been written if the subject had not come up.
Cecil did a column on this, as I recall.
People from every other country on the American continents are designated by the name of their country – Brazilian, Canadian, Honduran, Chilean, etc. These names do not use the word American. People from the U.S. have been called American for over 200 years, and the meaning is well-established and well-understood. There is no succinct alternative.
Some people do get their knickers in a twist over it. American can be used in a general sense to refer to the continents, and the countries and inhabitants thereof, and some of those inhabitants feel it’s presumptuous of us in the U.S. to use it when referring only to ourselves or our country. I’ve been taken to task for it on this board. All things considered, I consider it a specious argument. Piss and moan if you will, but there’s simply no compelling reason to change it.
America is a subset of North America. (North America is a subset of The Americas.)
I have two personal anecdotes where “North America” struck me, in context, as much more grandiose than “America.” I’ll mention only one:
In Contract Bridge Tournaments, a team-of-four will have a name. For example, the Conforte Team might be the name of a team with Joe Conforte as one of the players. A friend of mine was describing their recent tournament. In the 3rd round they faced a team named “North America” — this was the team that was representing the U.S. and Canada in the World Championship.
In my experience of living in Latin America for nearly 30 years, it’s not really taking offense but taking an opportunity to tweak the gringos for (supposed) arrogance in appropriating a word for themselves that belongs to the whole hemisphere. Latin Americans don’t want to refer to themselves as "Americans,’ they just object to the fact that we do. In grad school I had a highly annoying Honduran acquaintance who would loudly “correct” you if you mentioned Americans by loudly shouting “NORTH Americans!” But he did it just to be annoying.
I would point out that for historical reasons “American” is the proper term in English for a citizen of the United States. If he wished to use a different term in his own language he was welcome to do so. However, as pointed out, the most common term “norteamericano” wasn’t any improvement if he was seeking accuracy, since it also included Canadians and Mexicans.
Not only is Mexico’s official name “Estados Unidos Mexicanos, which translates to United States of Mexico or the United Mexican States” as stated in the article Jasmine linked to, but other Latin American countries have had United States in their names.
The first Republic of the United States of Brazil (República dos Estados Unidos do Brasil) lasted from 1889–1930.
The real bone of contention, therefore, is not us calling ourselves America or Americans, because that it is absolutely proper way to refer to us, but us usurping the title of the United States.
My experience is similar to Colibri’s, Latin Americans do sometimes refer to the Americas, meaning all of them, but I haven’t heard Americans used in a similar way.
My students, on the other hand, can drive me a bit nuts here. The American Convention on Human Rights is quite clearly an inter-American, not a U.S., document. I say this. They do not always hear this.
Calling it “The North American Convention …” would reduce the error rate (see #9) though that is of course unavailable here since South America is included — perhaps “Convention of the Americas on Human Rights”?
When I was in business school, I took a class on International Business, and the professor noted this, and specifically noted that there were some people from Latin American countries who do consider themselves to be residents of “America.”
Shortly thereafter, I was riding on a Greyhound bus that broke down in BFE Wisconsin. There were only three other passengers on the bus, and two of them were a pair of female college students from Argentina, who were studying in the U.S. for a year. As we had a few hours to kill while waiting for another bus, we were all chatting to kill time – when I asked them, “Are you enjoying visiting America?”, one of them grinned, and said, “Yes, but, we are from America!”
As usual I will point out that there could have been legitimate confusion today had history gone a little bit differently. But neither of those states lasted, so here we are.
Great anecdote in that link about Gerber.
But I’m a bit confused about the team called North America. I know that in domestic tournaments and some international ones, a team will be named after one of its members. But often in international tournaments that restrict the number of entries from individual countries, the team will be named for the country it represents. Thus, the Bermuda Bowl, for instance, may have teams designated USA1 and USA2.
AFAIK Canadians compete in the North American zone and are still welcome to join the championship representative teams. Murray-Kehela for example used to play for North America. Could the USA1/2 possibly be some usurpation? with no Canadians now making the top teams?
“American” as an adjective can refer both to things from the US and things related to the Amercas in general. So in this case “American” would be fine even if ambiguous. It’s only as a noun referring to people that it has the restricted meaning of a person from the US.
From Wikipedia
From my time spent in Chiapas, Guatemala, and Honduras, I noticed strong feelings of Central Americanism, officially evinced on vehicle licences, and on decorated trucks and buses with C.A. prominently shown, along with religious, political, and cultural icons. (Tweety Pie and Che Guevara share many display spots. Zapatista Guadelupe is common in Chiapas with her black bandanna mask and AK-47.)
Peoples of C.A. are Central American. As a stateside gringo, I’ll claim to be USAnian.
Dunno why this is even a question or why anyone would be upset about it.
United States of AMERICA = Americans.
It’s, like, the name of the country, which is typical of most nationalities and their respective countries.