Fear not, Quiddity. You’d be second in line – behind myself. No, I have no idea how that would work…
All I know is that Amerigo Vespucci would undoubtedly be absolutely amazed to find out that
his first name got used to name not only two continents but also a country, in exactly the same
way I’d be amazed to learn that they named a famous building built in the 23rd century after me.
But presumably that included what we now call Canada. I think your argument is fodder for the opposite point.
I know that people in Mexcio were somewhat annoyed 30 years ago when I said I was from “Los Estados Unidos” (The United States) because the real name for Mexico is Los Estados Unido de Mexico. “Norte Americano” was also problematical because Mexico is part of North (not Central) America.
I had someone in France laugh at me because I wrote LEU (Les Estates de Unitos sp?) instead of USA on a form.
I would disagree too. In Britain, pedants like me might use the arguably more correct “United States” or variations thereof, but usually people here do call it “America”.
Adding to that, my coworkers in India call it America sometimes as well. The British may have caused it, but when you’ve got India doing it, that is a whole lot of people.
The term American can refer to anyone from Canada to Chile - all citizens of an American continent. I prefer to call people from the U.S.A. United Statesians. We’re Canadians, you’re United Statesians. Simple.
Yes. Some parts of Panama are less the 30 miles from sea to sea. With the land between Africa and Asia you can’t get less then 70.
Measure it with Google Earth to see for yourselves.
No, and no. Prior to 1760, Canada was not part of the British Empire; most of it would have been referred to as New France or, of course, Canada. Borders have since changed but when people said “America,” they were quite often referring to the Thirteen Colonies, as it were. What is now the USA and what is now Canada have always been geopolitically distinct.
BTW, in French it’s “les Etats-Unis.”
Again, no, it can’t. That’s pure, deplorable illiteracy. “Statesian” isn’t a word in any language, and “American” isn’t even a good term for an Anglophone Canadian to use, since it’s ambiguous. In our version of English and general academic tradition there is no continent called “America,” there are two continents called “North America” and “South America.” Yes, I know speakers of some other languages or people from other continents call it something else. You don’t speak those other languages or live in those countries. Referring to someone from Argentina as an “American” is confusing (as well as being largely pointless; honestly, who ever needs to identify themself as a resident of the western hemisphere? Have you ever need to use the word that way?)
The correct term for a resident of the United States is “American.” It is not a matter of opinion, it is a fact, supported by every decent dictionary of the English language.
I do concede I forgot that the British like to use “America” as well. My bad.
If you leave the quotes off, then yes, America is offensive. 
Yeah, whatever. Tomato, potahtoe.
In my opinion, the flap of “American” is pretty much PC overload. (It doesn’t help when the OP says he’s comfortable saying American when he’s using it in a negative sense.) As others pointed out, only one country in the world uses America in its name, so we should have a valid claim to it. The alternative - the United States - is used by other countries, so it should be more offensive than America by that logic (and I’m sure if the United States became the common term, there would be people who would start making that point and insisting that America should be the PC term).
I think it was disingenuous of the Canadian border guards to pretend they didn’t know what you meant by “American”. It appears to me that many people/countries take exception to the term just because they have a beef with us, that they are finding fault just for the sake of finding fault.
Sure, America and its citizens do have faults (or at least I do), but I don’t think the word “American” is the problem.
The frequent recurrence of this topic is bizarre. With the exception of a tiny minority of linguistic/geopolitical pedants (some of whom really work themselves into a lather over the issue) people the world over understand perfectly well that “American” commonly refers to citizens of the United States. It isn’t an example of the creeping hegemony of our arrogant nation; it’s just the traditionally-used term.
I’ve met a lot of people from South America, all of whom freely used the terms “América” and “americano/a” to refer to the land and people of the U.S., without any apparent resentment or confusion. I’m pretty certain they would find it extremely confusing if they were referred to as “American,” though.
The people of the Estados Unidos Mexicanos would not appreciate that.
Of course, they did nothing of the sort. Canadian border guards have Americans tell them they’re American a thousand times a day. We don’t have land borders with anyone else. Why would they suddenly pretend not to understand it?
The only English-speaking people who have a problem with it appear to be Canadians with a raging inferiority complex (and it’s a tiny minority of us) or people who (a) have a political axe to grind and are (b) stupid.
The differentiation between the terms between English and Spanish, which has been brought up a lot, is interesting but really more of a lack of understanding than anything else; different languages are different languages. It’s not particularly noteworthy that “American” and “Americano” have two different meanings despite having the same linguistic root; that’s extremely common in related languages. It’s called a “false friend.”
I second RickJay’s posts 100%. “United Statesian” or “USAian” or any other variant is horrible.
Nor do I think any cultural arrogance or latent imperialism is implicit when people from the US refer to themselves as “Americans.” It is more the people who pettily insist on “USAian” and the like who are being revealing of their mindset.
How so? My example was actually from the Portuguese, but I’d assume Spanish to be similar. Unless there’s some subtlety I’m missing, the word “americano/a” means “American” in both its noun and adjective form.
(Unless by “Americano” you mean the coffee drink.)
Yes, I prefer to be called American-american.
At least among many Spanish speaking people - as many on the SDMB have pointed out endlessly in previous threads - “americano” first implies “of the Americas,” not “of the country the United States of America.” It means both, but in some places mostly means the former. Or so we’ve been told a zillion times.
Interesting. My experience is with Brazilians, who also have the term “estadunidense,” but in 10+ years I’ve yet to hear any of them actually use that term in conversation.