this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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According to English speakers who didn't understand the proper meaning of words like "continent," it's "Americans." It's stuck around now though.
According to most other languages and nations who use more accurate descriptors, it's closer to "Statesman." You know, people from the 'United States'
Personally I'd say Statesian than Statesman, but it is the same thing
Pretending to more grammatically correct and calling it "statesman." lol. We all live in states, whether you're in the united states of America or not, unless you live in some kind of anarchist or libertarian commune in the ocean or something.
Language is made up. The term used to refer to people from the USA in English is American essentially everywhere. It doesn't define anything. That's just the word used, and that's OK. For example, ketchup isn't a fermented fish sauce either, despite the original word possibly meaning that, but you likely wouldn't complain about that, because we all know what it means and that's the word we've decided to use for it.
Like I said, English speakers. English isn't the only language, and in most other languages it's closer to Statesman.
As I stated in a comment below, it's like having the one friend who burst into the room and declaring himself 'the Bossman guy' and every other nation in the world was like "okay Kyle, we'll call you the Bossman Guy since your parents are rich and you're a violent bully and we don't want to fight you on your identity issues.
And yes, language is always evolving, that's how it works.
And we're speaking English...
The demonym for a German in English is German, despite it being Deutsch in German. Is this an issue?
No one is telling other language speakers what to say. I English it's the dymonym of someone from the USA is American though, and it has been for a very long time, before it was even the nation of the USA, when it was still "British America." it wasn't force or violence that made it happen, and that makes you look very ignorant. It shows your clearly just making this stand as some anti-america (which I have problems with too) position, not from an actual position of logic and reason.
Again, we all live in states, so how is statesman any less confusing than American? It's arguably significantly worse as it implies membership to far more people than it actually includes.
I'm not anti-america.
This is the same thing as when people get upset about saying 'chai tea' or 'hound dog'
It was originally something else, people from a certain place used it differently, and now it's its own word. I was being snarky, I myself use 'American,' at the end of the day, who cares?
Fair enough. There's a lot of tankie here that make the same argument as you, but because they just hate the US. Their preferred term is usually USAsian though, so maybe I should have recognized you weren't one of them.
Fair enough, yeah, I don't wanna be confused with tankies lol
I love the US, and I want to help it be better too.
Typical nationalist South American, doesnβt understand that there are countless continental models and none is more correct than the others but still demands English speakers use their languages meaning.
How about you stop being such a nationalistic little colonial cunt and enforcing your language on others?
I mean, if you looked at my post history to see I was born in South America you'd have seen that I refer to myself as an American, like from the US.
That being said, using words incorrectly like "nationalist," especially "nationalist South American," which according to your fee-fees is a continent, not a nation, just goes to prove the point I made.
Also "colonial." You're just throwing buzzwords without understanding them, or rather, you're just throwing words without understanding them.
I was clearly being snarky about it, language is ever flowing, changing, and contradicting itself with words such as 'napron' into 'apron,' 'metaphorically' into 'literally,' or the thousands of borrowed words that mean what they are like 'hound dog' and 'chai tea.'
How about you stop being so blindly sensitive to someone making a sensible point about the only language you know and maybe laugh at yourself a little.
When someone says it's stupid that in Spanish cars are male and clouds are female I don't clutch my pearls, I laugh and agree that it's stupid.
the typical hispanic noun for someone from the usa is still "american" lil bro, nobody is enforcing anything. at least not from this side of the pond, anyways
No it's not, it's "Estadounidense."
"Estados Unidos" is United States, and "-ense" is a suffix referring to origin or belonging.
I never said enforcing, it's more like Americans are the one friend who bought themselves a leather jacket, burst into the room, pulled down their sunglasses and said "you can now call me... The Bossman Guy" and everyone else rolled their eyes and said sure
So now everyone calls them The Bossman Guy even though he's not even the boss
you werent the one who mentioned anything about enforcing though, so i wasnt referring to you
and yes, im aware of "estadounidense", but in most translations/localizations ive seen nowadays "americano" or "americana" is used, too, which is the same as american, because the thing has been around so long that cultural globalization just made it the new standard
of course, colloquially speaking we just call them "gringos" more often than not, for the same language reasons they call themselves 'americans'. difference being who is the neocolonialist lmao but, i digress
That's exactly right in my opinion too, I gotcha