Submitted 11 hours ago by possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Maybe this is a regional thing but I’ve always called it the US
I hear almost exclusively people referring to the country as “America”. This was actually a very conscious shift at the turn of the 20th century for people in public life to refer to the country as “America” instead of “the US” or “the United States” as we … acquired overseas territories and weren’t a country only of United States anymore
Ooosa
I feel I hear “The states,” “The US,” and “America” equally used here in Cali.
I say “the US”
I refer to it as “the US”, but refer to myself as an “American.”
I’m a US citizen and lived there most of my life but refuse to call myself American. I’d rather call myself after my home state or country of birth, It’s an embarrassment.
Helps that I live abroad though
Sir this is Wendy’s
To add to the confusion. The Americas (or America) comprise the landmasses of North and South America in the Western Hemisphere
People living in North and South America (or the Americas) can also be called American or Americans if the were referring to the landmass.
Strangely the United States IMO is the only country that seems to indicate the landmass its situated on when using the full name, the United States of America. Not the mention the indication of a unity of individual states.
Several single-word English alternatives have been suggested over time, for example Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, and United Stater.
Saying someone is a United Statesian or Statesian is probably the closest to how other countries like Canada (Canadian) or Mexico (Mexican) refer to themselves.
You do know it is actually named “the United Mexican States”, right? The name of the US is simply bad from the beginning and sometimes you can’t fix bad. Unless they take over all of the Americas, I guess. Then it’s a good name. Bad move, but good name.
Call us Yankees because it’ll annoy the “the South will rise again” crowd
Thats’s cuz English Language sucks.
In Chinese Language for example: A 美國人 (American (Country)) and a 美洲人 (American (Continent)). But in English both are “American”.
Also so many syllabels converying so few info.
Literally 4 syllabels for “American”
But “美國人” or “美洲人” are both 3 syllabels and already contains [America-Country Person] or [America-Continent Person]
Sorry, no offense to English speakers, but as a polyglot, I just had to comment this xD
Several single-word English alternatives have been suggested
Some of these make sense, but several of them would only refer to a specific area in the U.S. (e.g. Washingtonian) or are really out of left field (e.g. Fredonian).
I use “the U.S.” or “States”.
There’s more than one America.
But not more States…?
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a fair amount. If I say, “I’m from the States.”, people knew that meant the USA.
Safe to just call it shithole now.
“This is America! I’ll call it whatever I want!”
I use America a lot
I heard in a podcast recently that many people in the US still believed Africa was a country, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is somehow related to their using the name of their continent to designate their own country.
In my country you can know someone’s politics just by knowing if they call people from the USA americanos or estadounidenses.
estadounidenses
people actually use this in conversation?
When they aren’t USA bootlickers.
ps: This is Portuguese. US is Estados Unidos.
I’ve noticed this too but it seems like a left vs right thing. But never “the USA”
In Canada we usually refer to you guys as “the States”
Hello neighbor! Very interesting because down here we call ya’ll “the Northern Folk”
Red Green calls us “americans”, i call us fucked. Take your pick.
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media. Or they refer to themselves as “the world” like in “this icecream is the best in the world” (without having visited any other country for a significant time to be able to compare). In Europe, US Americans are referred to by different names: the ver popular „yanks“, the German “Amis” (die spinnen doch, die Amis), depends on the country. The prevalence of new names is increasing rapidly, e.g. Trumpists, US twerks, dropkicks.
Really? So no one ever anywhere but the US uses the exaggeration ‘best in the world’? Get off it.
You sorta had me in the first half, and there is definitely lots of criticism for US treating say….online spaces as an extension of the US, but you chose to go with ‘greatest in the world ice cream’ as the example? I mean, sure.
The irony of saying that only the US uses hyperbole
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media.
There isn’t really a better demonym, and certainly none in common usage… USians? US-American (as you mentioned)?
That’s just not true.
I use both as well as USA and united states.
When I hear the word “America”, I always have the mental image of someone that speaks English in a non-American (or even non-Anglosphere) accent, and that this person either really likes America or really hates The US, no in between. Like sometimes I picture a person saying “America” in a heavy russian accent I think it just sounds so funny. I think I watched too many movies and I just like the russian accent… it sounds very intimidating and that’s why it had that sort of “cool factor”.
Also, I kinda mix both depending on how my brain is thinking. Sometimes I think in Chinese and the 美國 automatically converts into English as “America”, cuz nobody says “合眾國” (United States) in Chinese (at least not in the variants/“dialects” that I know of), cuz it feels like a generic term like “The Republic”, doesn’t make a lot of sense unless referring specifically to domestic politics.
I think in Chinese, sometimes I hear “民國” (shortened from the full term 中華民國) to refer to ROC and I think “共和國” (shortened from the full term 中華人民共和國) can similarly be used similar to refer to PRC, when used in the context of Chinese history.
I use them interchangeably. 🤷
Could be regional, but I hear it quite often.
There are some instances where it feels more correct to say US, but for everyday use I probably say America more.
Slightly off topic, but 'round 'ere (NZ) there’s a difference between referring to the people/population as ‘Americans’ and sometimes ‘Yanks’ (sorry) and referring to the political entity ‘The US’ or ‘The States’.
Though, the few Americans I know tend to refer to themselves in terms of their state rather than the union anyway, even in another country. E.g. “where are your from?” “I’m from California” or whatever.
GenLe@lemmy.ml 2 minutes ago
I actually use both, depending on the context of the conversation and the people I am speaking with. I do this partially because I understand we are one of three Americas. If I am speaking to someone who isn’t a U.S. citizen, I’ll say U.S. But to other U.S. citizens, I’ll say America because we know the implied meaning when we say it.