# The use of "Anglo" to mean "white American"...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-anglo-to-mean-white-american/211492>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 5, 2003, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-anglo-to-mean-white-american/211492 "2003-11-05T04:25:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-anglo-to-mean-white-american/211492/61 "2003-11-10T19:51:02Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by acsenray \*  
> \*\*The point is that “British” can mean one of many things. It’s besides the point that some might find some of those meanings objectionable. \*\*

No, the point is that _it doesn’t mean Irish_. The one exception is in the phrase “The British Isles” and even that exception is not accepted by everyone.

As has been demonstrated in this thread, some people think that “English” can mean “Scottish”. It doesn’t, and the fact that it’s frequently used that way doesn’t make it correct.

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**Author:** ![GawnFishin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@GawnFishin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GawnFishin)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-use-of-anglo-to-mean-white-american/211492/62 "2003-11-10T20:20:28Z")

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**ruadh** My apologies for the prior post I wanted to concentrate on the posts of Acsenray and Futile Gesture. Yes you are correct in fact not listed on your cite which is listed on my cite are the Teutons as well. However and not taking anything away from your response these were all referred to as Germanic and you are also correct that the Angles were from the Jutland peninsula and islands however they are all referred to as Germanic. My error was in making the jump from Germanic to German I was trying to point out that Angles were Germanic and hence the origin was Germanic. Maybe we should refer to them as Indo-Europeans

**Acsenray** My apologies while you are correct this is an argument of semantics. I made the unintentional jump from Germanic to German in referring to the post by Doobieous an innocent mistake but an easy one to make I’m sure you’ll agree. However in my posts where I stated “Just as Anglo is also not English.” Yes Anglo does refer to English the point was there were Angles’ before England and Angle being the origin of Anglo. I’m sure you take my point. I know it’s a hair to split but isn’t that the point. Splitting hairs as to what people call each other.

**Doobieous** My apologies you are correct Germans are not Anglos.

Call someone whatever you will for whatever reason and intentionally or not I’m sure you’ll upset some body as I think we’ve well demonstrated.

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