Are you looking for the word “shibboleth”?
Apparently, without knowing so, I was. Thank you!
There was a member here by that name.
funny…
Days have names but there are only seven names for up to 31 dates…months have names of all 12 and numbered accordingly. Years are just numbers with no names whatsoever.
So, it should be… Day Number/Month Name/Year Number or Month Name/ Day Number/ Year Number.
They could even Hyphenate the Month names down to 2 letters… Ja, Fe, Mr, Ap, My, Jn, Jy, Au, Se, Oc, No, De
No more confusion…see? 
You’re getting into some murky waters now, especially since according to the German government those kids who have never set foot in Germany ARE citizens of Germany.
The American’s kids would also be considered citizens by the US government, no on the grandkids assuming the parents spent no time in the USA.
Only if they were registered as such at the US consulate. They have the right to citizenship; they’re not automatically citizens.
I disagree, at least potentially. I am an American who moved to Germany after marrying a German and then had two children here. My kids are both German and American. They have two passports each. We speak English in the home and we travel to America as a family at least once a year. My children are technically, legally, and meaningfully Americans, and anyone who think otherwise will be the sad recipient of the stinkeye from me.
Now, in different circumstances and with different conditions, I could picture that the children born to at least one parent who was born elsewhere are fully of the culture and country of their own birth and not of the culture and country of their parent. But that doesn’t apply to everyone.
Are you planning on moving back to the states? Have your kids ever resided in the US?
My son has never set foot in the USA, however he speaks what little he does in a US accent and no one who sees him assumes or speaks of him as a local, he is intrinsically foreign because of his skin tone they just don’t know what country(yea I don’t like it but what are you gonna do).
Think of people born in the US to foreign parents who because of their race are always asked where they are really from.
“Where are you from?”
“Sacramento”
“No where are you REALLY from?”
For the love of God, just don’t be the guy who decides to be uselessly forward-looking and add extra digits, making it YYYYYY.
It’s not Y’s beyond your years!
mm-dd-yyyy sorted correctly in a spreadsheet; dd mm yyyy did not. That is why people who dealt with lots of dated records did not want to change.
yyyy-mm-dd sorts correctly in every format and application, but civilians do not like. I like it a lot, because it is completely different and unambiguous, as well as language independent.
But dd MMM yyyy is unambigous, and most people can figure out the MMM no matter what European based language is used. People will use this format, but businesses will gradually switch to yyyy-mm-dd for all international applications.
But what if your children went on horrendous racist anti-American rants, and justified them by saying “it’s ok, I’m American”?
I wouldn’t call your kids American (based on what you’ve said). They’re half-American.
Sorry, mine was intended purely for humor.
BTW, may I hijack this thread to request that if any Doper ever gets a chuckle from any of my “jokes,” please Click Quote and send me a " 
" ?
I’m beginning to worry I need psychotherapy for my perverted sense of humor.
Not even foreign parents… 6th-generation American parents, but “the wrong color”, for several friends of mine.
We have kept it as an open possibility since the beginning of our marriage. Now that the kids are 12 and 15, we’re not planning on moving in the next years so that they can finish their secondary education here. But the day after my daughter gets her Abitur, I am so going to start spending more of each year in the States. My kids have never resided in the US, but we’ve spent 3-6 weeks a year there since they were born.
This made me giggle like a loon.
What? Why on earth would they do something that silly? If they did, I’d give them a sharp lecture and the same stinkeye I will now focus on you. Half-American? Excuse me? What exactly is a half-American?
You’re all missing the fucking point!
Christ almighty! This thread is longer than fucking War and Peace, with everyone arguing over the placement of a set of fucking numbers that would have nothing to do with anything if those god damned goose-stepping SOBs, true to their stereotype, don’t insist that an 86-year-old woman who suffered a stroke — mobility issues, indeed — MUST SHOW UP IN PERSON ONCE EVERY FUCKING YEAR to prove she’s alive before they continue a measly $100-a-month stipend.
Nothing short of showing up in person! She should consider herself lucky she’s not in a fucking iron lung! You’d think the cash comes out of Angela Merkal’s personal fucking account!
Bunch of god-damned SOBs. No wonder they lost two fucking wars.
Edit: Oh oh. I mentioned two wars. Maybe I’ll get away with it.
Kenm, that is one of the very best rants I’ve seen in ages. Congratulations - I loved it!
I would have thought it’s perfectly clear. One can be half-American, just as one can be half-Welsh or half-Irish (as I am). One Irish parent, one not.