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What would you think of a hypothetical campaign to rename the term "American" when referring to the US? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"American" is the official English word when referring to people or things from the United States, but it heavily implies that it means either all of North America or all of North and South Americas. Most other languages have different words for American (country) and American (continents). If there were a campaign to replace the word "America" with something else when referring to the US, what would you think of it?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 years ago (1 children)

It's always confused me as other continents it's a generic term for all inhabitants. The USA is only united states of an individual country. How does one then refer to everyone living on that continent? It sort of also comes across a bit arrogantly as if no other country exists on the continent (in my opinion).

Maybe United States (US citizen) is a better description instead of the latter part of the name. It's more specific at least.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure a lot of countries are officially United States of X (eg. Mexico, Brazil)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago (1 children)

Not that I can think of in their names. Most countries do consist of states, provinces, counties, etc but their country name is usually either just a name or "Republic of". The United Kingdom is maybe closest being the full name United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but they use the first part. There is no country like the United States of Africa. We do have the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is often referred to just as Congo, but then that is unique still and not the name of the whole continent. The Republic of South Africa is also known usually as just South Africa, but not Africa or Southern Africa (which refers to all the countries to the South in Africa).

Most countries use Republic of "Country Name" or Kingdom of "Country Name" or State of "Country Name", and are then known by their country name. But none take the country name of the continent on which they are situation. I suppose it's a custom, but just explains why many non-US citizens find it a bit at odds using the continent name.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago* (last edited 4 years ago)

So I checked and apparently, I am wrong in thinking this was the case for many countries. Mexico is officially the United Mexican States though. For "Congo", you actually have two different countries: Republic of the Congo (aka Congo-Brazzaville) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (aka Congo-Kinshasa). The Congo is, in fact, a big river and the names and borders come from colonialism of course.

Indeginious activits apparently also use AmeriKa or some various to link it to it's colonial or settler history (same with Kanada).