How is it offensive? Unless there are some British people in that thread saying it then it’s about as valid as white people insisting you shouldn’t call people of African descent black - what the fuck would they know?
A lot of chinese people will use their ethnicity, i.e. Han.
Well I was saying that I generally don’t find it offensive (patronizing, yes), but that it can be used in an offensive way. Like other words.
Indiana residents are…Hoosiers. No one’s sure why.
Michigan residents used to be Michiganders. Now they’re Michiganians. Except those in the Upper Peninsula, who are Yoopers.
Point taken, but they any set of words that should be innocuous can either be meant as or taken as offensive.
Just take the sentence “You and your family are well, I hope?” On the face of it that should just be a well-meaning simple enquiry. Out of the mouth of a leering local crime lord who has you in his sights it’s a threat.
Folks from Maine are called Mainers.
And folks from New England are called New Englanders.
I wonder why ‘Englanders’ isn’t appropriate for people from England.
As a curiosity, the people from Menton (a beautiful town on the French Rivera where my family spends summers) are called Mentonasque.
When in Barbados I was told by one local that the correct term for the people there was Barbadians, but another local angrily disagreed, saying Bajan was correct. They glared at each other, I ordered a round of Presidente Beers and things settled down.
I wouldn’t call a Macca (From Sunderland) a Geordie if I valued my teeth.
I’m a Brit and not offended to be called one.
I have heard the term used in tones of great malice when used by extremist Irish Nationalists referring to myself.
But as I say I’m proud of my ethnicity so the term doesn’t offend me.
Though somewhat bizzarly over here we’re not allowed to shorten Pakistani to Paki as it is supposed to be a perjorative term and we can get prosecuted for saying it.
A Doper who actually is a Pakistani living in Pakistan (AK) said that he didn’t find it offensive, as opposed to someone of Pakistani descent living in the U.K.
Apparently shortening Japanese to Jap is also supposed to be meant insultingly.
So its …
Brit-OK
Paki-Not O.K.
Jap-Not O.K.
logical isn’t it?
Actually, my reference is to the original use of BR-549, from which the band’s name is inspired. I remember watching the show Hee Haw and all the corny skits on lazy Saturday afternoons growing up.
Completing the hijack circle to say - cool, ignorance fought; I did not know that!
Back to our regularly-scheduled thread.
Says who? Michigander is more elegant.
My (Australian) wife says that people from Sydney are called Sydneysiders. Not quite sure if she’s yanking my chain or not 
Let us not forget the Monégasques and the Sammarinese.
Only down here at the Cape. 
(Or are you hated in Durban as well? :p) Technically I suppose you should be called “Gautengers”.
There’s the slightly odd-sounding (although presumably grammatically correct) construction “Capetonians” for people from Cape Town.
I liked Michigander better too, but I haven’t heard it used in years. And I’ve lived here most of my life. “Michiganian” sounds pretentious to me, but it’s the term the local media have used since at least the 1980s.
As a Chinese immigrant my Dad never found the term “Chinaman” offensive, until he was told by someone indignant on his behalf that it was meant to be offensive. “Yes, I am a man. And I am from China. So?”. And living in Harlem and then the South Bronx around 1968-1976, he had a lot of Hispanic neighbors and got called “Chino” a lot (mostly in a friendly way).
Your mileage in the year 2010 with this may vary of course
And Perthanalities! And Taswegians (or Tasmaniacs)! Territorians! Darwinians! New South Welshmen! Brisbanites! Queenslanders! Adelaidians!
Lotsa weird structures out there of course, and many are “slang” as opposed to “proper” names. Many are modern(ish) day creations by Politically Correct entities (such as the media, especially in the U.S.) that follow no logic that traditional speakers of English can perceive.
There’s a rule of thumb I learned ages ago to create the noun form used to indicate a resident of a specific country. If the country name ends in a vowel, you drop the vowel and add a simple suffix ending with “an” or “ian” to the name of the country (e.g., America to American, Canada to Canadian). A ‘sub rule’ if you will is to drop the last vowel or syllable completely: Germany to German, Turkey to Turk. If the name ends in a consonant then the most common suffixes are “ese” or “er”. The “er” ending seems to be commonly derived from Germanic language usage or syntax, and there’s a seemingly older English form to simply add “man” to the end of the country name. It also seems to me that there’s less "PC"ness to the way British English-speaking people use their language as opposed to American English-speaking people.
One thing to bear in mind is that the noun form we use in English is largely dependant upon our English-language-specific version of the country name. For example, the country known to us as “Germany” is known to its residents as “Deutschland”, and so the noun forms will be different depending on which name you use.
And last but not least, there’s always exceptions to the rule.
Random sampling of Countries + noun forms:
((to parse country name to noun form, try to use it in a sentence like this: “I am from [country] so I am a/an [noun form]”))
America → American
Canada → Canadian / Canuck
China → Chinese / Chinaman
Ghana → Ghanian
Mexico → Mexican
Puerto Rico → Puerto Rican
Deutschland → Deutschlander
Germany → German
Iceland → Icelander
Turkey → Turk
Iran → Iranian
Arabia → Arabian (or Arab depending on context)
England → Englander / Englishman
Viet Nam → Vietnamese
France → Frenchman
Netherlands → Dutchman
Nederlands → Nederlander
Wales → Welshman
Iraq → Iraqi
Scotland → Scot
Argentina → Argentinian
Bolivia → Bolivian
South Africa → South African
Sudan → Sudanese
Pakistan → Pakistani
Congo → Congolese
Egypt → Egyptian
I know a word ending in “ese” sounds like it should only be adjectival according to regular English grammar, but these forms are regularly used in **American **English as nouns whether or not they are “proper” under traditional English grammatical guidelines. I blame the media for the gross dumbing-down of America … those stupid language guidebooks (e.g., the AP Stylebook) that most if not all reporters use to vet their syntax are horrible – they deconstruct language to the lowest common denominator then use ‘newspeak’ logic to support their inventions of “simplified” spelling and grammar – for example they use ‘leaped’ [leept] instead of ‘leapt’ [lept] because they believe that the Average American™ is simply too stupid to understand that ‘leapt’ is past tense of the verb ‘to leap’ and similar such gross atrocities wrought upon irregular verbs. I’m tired of “hanged” instead of “hung” and “lighted” instead of “lit”. What’s next, “bringed” instead of “brought”, “leaded” [leeded] instead of “led”, “readed” instead of “read” ? Jeez, we already get “pleaded” instead of “pled” in every news report about court cases. Effin stupid reporters / media editors seriously tick me off.
But to more directly address the OP’s question, I don’t believe there is any appropriate English-language alternative to “Englishman” or “Frenchman” regardless of the subject’s gender.
People from Glasgow are Glaswegians, which is weird.
But “hanged” IS correct in some cases. I might have hung the picture on the wall but the evil criminal will be hanged by the neck until dead. So things can be “hung”, but people are “hanged”, (although they might also be well hung). 
And I suppose it’s past my bedtime and my little brain is powering down, but I’m sure “pleaded” is correct. I think I have heard or read “pled” but it seemed to be a slang usage or simply done for comic effect.
That seems a bit unfair on Englishwomen and Frenchwomen. Ach, that’s all right, all English and French are probably too busy watching the football World Cup to care.
I suppose so. Like people from Norway being Norwegian. My first thought, Zsofia, was to offer to become a Glasweirdan instead, then I realised that doesn’t really help. Even a lame joke needs a bit of logic somewhere. :smack:
I’m not sure what we ought to call the natives of Edinburgh. I mean, “Edinburger” is tempting, but also has a certain weirdness. And people from Paisley are called “Buddies”, for no clear reason.
Probably because Engländer is the German word for them.