Talk: American
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See also: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (US vs American), talk:Usian, Talk:List of people from the United States/naming
I moved the below version with a bit of editiorializing by User:209.166.90.165 here to talk. --Infrogmation 10:13 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
American can mean "of the United States of America" (the most common egocentric usage in the English language ); it also means "of or relating to the the Americas".
This first usage is a typical egocentric attitude that the United States perpetuates in its culture. It should also be noted that:
- Fidel Castro is an American.
- Argentinians are Americans.
- Peruvians are Americans.
- There are a few considerate people in the USA who are actually offended by the egocentric usage of American to mean a citizen of the USA. The rest could care less about you and your brethren in whatever lesser nation you hail from.
I always find this issue odd. I hear the term "Amerikanos" used all the time by my Greek relatives to refer to people from the US, and presumably that's not due to them being egocentric Americans. It's just the generally accepted usage, English language or otherwise. --Delirium 18:34 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- In Canada "American" means the United States...we don't describe ourselves as being "American" as in "from the Americans." Well, sometimes people do, but usually the only people who do that are the kinds that want Canada to join the US as a new state...otherwise Canadians are North Americans, Peruvians are not Americans, they are South Americans, as are Argentinians. (I've actually never heard Cubans being descibed as any sort of American, not even Central American.) Just thought I would add this, it seemed relevant :) Adam Bishop 18:51 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The disambiguation page seems like more of a hassle than it is worth, whenever someone writes the word "American" in English, it is clear that it refers to a resident of "The United States of America". I have never heard it used in any other way. I would suggest changed this page to a redirect, but I won't change it because it seems some people feel very strongly about this realistically non-existent multiple meaning. What do other rational people think?
- Given that it's an issue that is brought up periodically, I think it's worth having this explanation. It's information, and information is what we're all about. =] That said, I do agree that 99% of the uses of "American" are intended to refer to those from the USA, and this is true whether or not the person using the term is from the USA -- when a Greek says "Amerikanos" they mean person from the USA; when a German says "Amerikaner" they mean person from the USA; when a Briton says "American" they mean a person from the USA; and so on. So it really has nothing to do with US cultural imperialism, as this usage is standard in dozens of languages throughout the world. --Delirium 21:04 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)
- If you change this page to a redirect to United States of America, then you should put disambiguation text at the top of United States of America:
- American redirects here. For other uses of the word American, see American (disambiguation).
- Personally I dislike such things, from a reader's perspective, and thus almost always prefer hub disambiguation in such cases, with the current software. Martin 00:37 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I appreciate Infrogmation's attempt to be succinct, but I think it's pruned down a little too far now; it is a delicate subject for a number of people, and in this case extra explanation might forestall future flamage. Stan 19:32, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Well, I think Infrogmation's second paragraph is perhaps better than the old one, if it is really true that some significant number of Latin Americans really use "American" (especially, in English usage) to include themselves. However, I liked the original first paragraph better and I definitely believe it is more accurate. Daniel Quinlan 20:00, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)
I removed the article link to USian. I think it's very misleading as that neologism (yes, it is one, technically) is basically never used outside of Wikipedia and a few random sites (like usian.org). Just because someone was able to coin a word, I don't think it immediately makes it encyclopedic. There are a lot of non-preferred words we don't link to for similar reasons (including offense which is definitely a factor for USian). Just because a few pedantic or prejudiced editors object to the existence of the term "American", does not mean we need to link to a made-up so-called alternate word. The word is not used. People who live in the USA are "Americans" and almost all Americans want to be called "Americans" and virtually everyone calls them "Americans". Wikipedia should not be advocating language changes by trying to spread neologisms that were dead on arrival. Daniel Quinlan 20:03, Aug 15, 2003 (UTC)
- Google gets me 1290 hits for usian -wikipedia, and 1340 hits for usian. If you look at the article on Usian, it discusses all the various neologisms - not just this one, and the various neologisms as a group are certainly worth an article, in my opinion. Martin 20:10, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- There are 75,000,000 hits for "American" and if even only 10-50% of those are using the term for "American" rather than the part of a compound, then they dwarf "Usian" by a huge factor. The discussion of the neologism does not warrant such a long explanation here as most of this material is already in Alternative words for American (which I just renamed from Usian since it discusses all of the alternative words). I think they are absolutely worth an article, though, don't get me wrong. Daniel Quinlan 20:34, Aug 15, 2003 (UTC)
- I do see your point - my main concern was that the unadorned link to "Usian" on the page wasn't very clear, and might puzzle readers. Perhaps with your rename this is no longer an issue? Martin
So, this is no longer a disambiguation page as such - should we still fix links from [[American]] to [[United States|American]]? Most other nationalities redirect in this way, it would certainly be more consistent. What do you think? -- sannse (talk) 18:52, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
I am troubled by the lack of specification that the use of American as a self-descriptor in North and South American nations is basically confined to Latin American countries. In Canada, it is generally considered an insult to refer to one as "American." Call a Canadian "American" and you will definately be corrected, if not assaulted.
