Also offensive: pointing out that English speakers do not use the word “American” to refer to people from Latin America. The term in our language is universally used to refer to people from the country America.
It’s so weird how some people are so committed to this. “United Statesian” and variants thereof don’t actually solve the perceived problem due to the fact that Mexico is formally the United Mexican States (Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia were all United States of their own in the past too). And besides that, there are so many other examples of countries using the name of something they do not encompass the whole of. South Africa? Not actually the whole of the south of Africa, it turns out. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo? Both not the only country in the Congo basin. The European Union isn’t all of Europe, Sudan doesn’t include South Sudan, and the only part of the river Indus that’s in India is in disputed Kashmir
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo
I had no idea these were two separate nations
PTB, easy. Regardless of where one stands on the issue of ‘Americans’, pretty mildly correcting someone for assuming your nationality and using that to disparage your opinion is not (or should not be) a removable offense.
The thread itself is a shitfest that boils down to idiocy on the same level as “is tomato a fruit or a vegetable?” and “ackshyually water is not wet it wets things”. And that includes both your comment and the comment that you’re replying to. Specially the later, as the guy found some weird hill to die on.
Even then, PTB. As typical for lemmy dot ml.
I’ll also address what estefano is saying in another comment in the same thread, as it’s outright misinformation:
In Brazil, we use USians or Statesians
Most people in the territory controlled by Brazil refer to people in the territory controlled by USA as “americanos” (lit. “Americans”). People who call them “estado-unidenses” (lit. “United-Statians”), like I do, are a minority. And people certainly do not call them by anything remotely translatable as “USians” (EUAnos? That sounds awful*) or “Statesians” (estadenses?).
I used the second one on an academic paper and it went through.
You can submit a lot of crap on academic papers and it’ll still go through. Welcome to Latin America. No, even better - welcome to the world in 2025, the institutions supposed to defend science against the Sturgeon’s Law are busier counting money than doing their job.
As such, “they accepted it” is NOT grounds to claim shite.
Ma que djanho.
*EUAnos sounds like “eu ânus” [I anus] for most Portuguese speakers. (It doesn’t for me but it gets really close.)
I’m really disappointed at how it went down, because I was actually at first really enjoying the discussion of linguistics and geography and how they intersect.
I think it really went south once dessalines piped up. Which…shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose.
Yeah. And this would make some really great topic for Sociolinguistic research - local demonyms for outsiders vs. attitude towards those outsiders. This stuff sometimes changes even within a linguistic community.
Eh, it is what it is.
ML is pretty well known for mods either power tripping, or at least pushing the boundaries to the edge.
This one could go either way.
Technically the comment was a rule violation, so removing the comment isn’t totally power tripping.
The problem is that your comment was the least political in the whole damn thread. Like, even my comment was a tad more political than yours, depending on how you look at it. And even that was way less than dessalines’ tangent.
The entire post was about language and word usage, and your comment definitely was not political, nor was it in any way rude or insulting.
I’m still really surprised your comment got reported/removed, but mine didn’t. It was confusing as hell when I came back after a response and saw yours gone.
So, yeah, definitely PTB. If they’d nuked everyone, I could see it being clueless mods, but targeting yours just means they got a report and wiped it, so that’s dumber than dammit, even if it wasn’t a literal power trip
I actually wanted to reach out to the mods and ask what’s up before posting this. But Lemmy’s lack of a modmail feature means when I want to contact mods, I have to direct message them individually. And it looks like all the mods of that community are inactive, with the most recent one only having been active 2 months ago. So I wouldn’t even know who to reach out to.
YDI. Seems like a really dumb take. AFAIK to many folks (not from the USA) North Americans are from Canada, USA, Mexico combined with the Central and South American countries, they are collectively known as The Americas. Everyone in the Americas is American in the same sense that all Africans are African despite there being many countries. The arrogance of USAsians co-opting the name of the whole continent of The Americas as though they are the only country that matters is kind of mind boggling.
The thread was literally asking “hey, what are the right words to use to refer to people from America”. Even if my take was wrong (and I maintain in the strongest terms that it was not…see my reply to @[email protected]) it was a respectful input to the discussion at hand. “YDI” is the dumbest of dumb takes. Contributing to a thread about a given topic with input on that topic does not deserve a ban and to have your opinion silenced.
Oh, incidentally I also reported dessaline’s comment. Like you say, they were pretty obviously behaving in an offensive manner. I figure if the mods are removing my comments (and giving me a weeklong ban!!), they had for sure better remove dessaline’s, which is far more directly offensive with its completely unfounded accusation of white supremacy and calling you illiterate.
In relation to the claims they make about America not being used prior to the 20th century…even their own article proves them wrong.
For some thirty years prior to 1898, while the adjective ‘American’ has been in general use, the noun ‘America’ has been extremely rare,
it says. Remembering that this is a thread specifically about the demonym. So the adjective has been in widespread use since at least the 19th century, despite what our fascistic friend says.
Not that the claim made in that article is exactly correct. One of my favourite books (and certainly my favourite pre-20th-century text) uses some derivation of “America” no fewer than 7 times, two of which are nouns. Not exactly an obscure text, and not one with any reason to be strongly biased in favour of America. Still, that at only serves as proof that the claim in the article is wrong by at least 1 year, so it’s not the most damning. Not as damning as the fact that the article given in evidence that “American” only exists because imperialism (never mind the bleeding obvious…America as a country, and indeed all the various other countries of the Americas, only exist because of imperialism) specifically states that “American” existed prior.
Damn, they added a ban? And a week? A one day, that’s kinda normal for a cooldown period, but a week? Damn.
And, yeah, the subject comes up from time to time, so I’ve gone looking a few times. Never bothered to keep links, and lost my copy/paste that covered quotes and citations, but there’s no lack of evidence regarding the usage I was describing.
The French in specific were pretty hung ho about accepting the US as a nation early on. They use a different term in French, etatsunidens, or something like that, but when they were using English in correspondence with us and our diplomats of the era, American and America were used for sure. Not that it matters too much, since the real point of the conversation was current usage; I only brought up the past to indicate that the subject isn’t controversial overall. But I guess I used keywords lol
I respect the work dessalines puts into lemmy as a dev, so I never get nasty with him, and in truth he’s not usually that rude himself. But he has that habit when he’s on his “home turf” of sticking to the party line no matter what, even if it’s having to hammer the square peg of it into the round hole of a conversation.
Makes me wonder what bug is up his ass tbh. Maybe it was a bad day or whatever. We’ve disagreed in the past without him stepping to a slap fight.
from the country America
You mean continent(s)?
I do not. That was the whole point of my multiple comments in the original thread. America is the correct noun, in English, to refer to the United States of America.
We can get into definitions of continents if you like. I accept that people from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking backgrounds primarily talk about a 6 continent model consisting of America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/Oceania, and Antarctica. I can also accept that because there’s no real solid definition of a continent, it’s impossible to say that this is wrong per se. I will say that I find it an absolutely baffling grouping to use, and that I myself prefer 6 continents consisting of North and South America, Eurasia, Africa, Oceania, and Antarctica; it makes no sense to me that someone could group the Americas while considering Afroeurasia three continents: to me, either an isthmus like Panama and Suez separates continents, or it does not, and it’s weird to split over Suez but not Panama, and even weirder not to merge Eurasia who have no physical separation. (And IMO, once you start separating Europe and Asia, it becomes hard not to justify separating Arabia and India, if we’re trying to keep a logical definition.) But continents aren’t especially logical. In most of the English-speaking world, the 7 continent model dominates. We talk about North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia/Oceania, and Antarctica. Those are the 7 continents, and while you can disagree with them (as I do!), in most conversations you’re just being difficult if you bring up that disagreement in anything more than a very lighthearted way.
The use of the demonym America stems in part from that. Once you reject the notion that “America” is a single continent, it becomes far easier to understand that the demonym “American” can’t refer to people from two continents, and so it’s very normal to use it to refer to just one country. That country being the United States of America. It’s pretty normal to refer to countries by their short form. Czechia a few years back started a big campaign push to specifically ask people to call them that, rather than always using the formal “Czech Republic”. Australia rarely gets referred to as the “Commonwealth of Australia”, and the fact that Canada is officially “the Dominion of Canada” is rarely even acknowledged by official texts these days. Amusingly, America’s southern neighbour has an equally valid claim on the name “United States”, since Estados Unidos Mexicanos translates to United Mexican States, or, roughly, United States of Mexico. Latin Americans often get upset at this because in Spanish, the demonym is ‘estadounidense’, which roughly translates to ‘United Statesian’. But that’s not a word that exists in English. It’s not especially logical even in Spanish, given that logically speaking, estadounidense could also refer to Mexicans. But words are defined by their usage, and in common usage that word unambiguously means American. The same is true in English. American unambiguously, in English, means person or thing from the United States of America. It’s silly to get upset by that.
Two corrections:
- Canada is legally called 'Canada" since 1867 and again in 1982.
- Brazil speaks Portuguese, not Spanish like many of the other Central & South American countries.
[Info dump that sounds like an “ackshyually”, but doesn’t contradict what you said, nor tries to. It’s just that you touched a topic that I enjoy talking about.]
Under the territory controlled by the Brazilian most people do speak Portuguese but there are ~200 other languages; for example a good chunk of my family speaks a Venetian variety. Spanish is among those, and it’s actually spoken by a few people born in the territory controlled by Brazil due to border changes. Other varieties besides PT and ES can be roughly split into colonial (e.g. Talian, Hunsrik, Pommersch, Polish) and Amerindian (e.g. Mbyá, Kaingang, Laklãnõ).
On the other hand, Portuguese sometimes pops up even in territory controlled by other governments than Brazil. Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) and Puerto Iguazú (Argentina) are an example, but as well some northern chunk of Uruguay. And then there’s a bunch of “portuñol” mixed varieties that IMO should be protected by the statal governments (because the federation certainly won’t).
What I have seen suggests that Canada has not changed its legal name since confederation in 1867, and at that time they chose the Dominion of Canada. The name has been allowed to fade out of use and has not been used in a long time, but neither was the name ever officially changed. Its obscurity is precisely why I chose to bring it up.
Not sure what you put up point 2 for. I explicitly included one reference in my comment to acknowledge that, and at no time did I call out Brazil as speaking Spanish.
I typically just say “American” too but I don’t do all this when I get corrected. It comes across like you’re trying to justify being
racistethnocentric.It is weird to hear someone say “country of America” though when you could just say “the US(A)”
Edit: corrected language
I do not appreciate the accusation of racism. If that’s the kind of tenor this conversation is going to take, I’m not going to engage further.
This is commentary on a thread that was specifically created to get into the nuances of language surrounding America. So yeah, of course I went into a lot of detail about the origins and why we say what we do.
I said that’s how it comes across. I’ve said things in the past that came across as racist/xenophobic/ethnocentric, and I appreciate it when people point it out so I can adjust.
This just seems like one of those thing where if explaining and defending your position sounds racist/xenophobic/ethnocentric, you should consider changing your position or taking it less seriously
If you’re unwilling to consider that- yeah, it might be best not to engage further
Which part of what I said do you think is racist? Because I simply don’t see it. If anything, the ones being intolerant here are the ones who insist that the way they use words in their language is right and we have to all contort the definitions we’ve used for over a hundred years to match the etymological translation of words they use.
I’m intolerant of colonial language. The way “American” is used by English speakers to mean “USAmerican” is actually just US chauvinism. They think they are the center of the world and so of course American only refers to them, even though there’s a bunch of other countries in the Americas and the majority of Americans don’t actually live in the US.
The term “American” is colonial regardless of what you apply to it. There is no acknowledgment of the native peoples of the land today called the Americas, regardless of whether you call them all Americans or only those from the country America.
When faced with multiple different colonial options, I’m going to stick with the one that is short, easy to say, and most widely understood.
Seems to me you’re the one policing others’ language, ultimately suggesting Latin Americans aren’t Americans.
For “Americans” to refer to only “US Americans” (and make sense), the term necessarily must exclude Latin Americans
Note: Another user pointed out, I should’ve said ethnocentric rather than racist
How on Earth do you think this suggests that?
The term excludes anyone not from the country of America. The term for people from the continent is either North American or South American.
If they want to use it, I’m not going to correct them. If they try to “correct” me for using my language in its most widely accepted manner, that’s when I start getting mad. The only one policing others’ language arethose insisting you cannot call Americans Americans.
So you’re caving to people who are trying to force their sociolinguistic ideas on the speakers of a different language?
It’s not you that’s being racist/ethnocentric/xenophobic/imperialist… If you were conversing in Spanish then sure, it’d be Estadounidense/Estados Unidos but in English it’s American/America and to try and force either one to change would be cultural imperialism
Do you think everyone in America is the same race? And what race do you think they are?
You’re right, I should’ve said xenophobic
Are you being xenophobic when you use the term American? Or is it just common parlance? What is it when you tell people how to address themselves?
*ethnocentric is a better term actually, after more thinking
Yeah, when I use the term “American” to refer to US Americans, I’m being ethnocentric. If I were to be corrected and then -instead of accepting the correction- double down and argue, that would certainly seem like I had a problem with being an equal to Latin Americans
There is space for America to refer to the continents of North and South America, and also be short hand for the United States of America the same way that the United Mexican States is called Mexico.
Inferring that it makes anyone less equal is ethnocetric, if anything.
I don’t believe ethnocentric is the correct term (I mean, clearly. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it. But if there has to be a label you can apply, ethnocentric isn’t it.). American is not an ethnicity. Asian Americans and African Americans are every bit as American as white Americans and Latino Americans. The only ethnicity with a better claim than all those others are Native Americans.
South Americans are the most butthurt people in the world over the seperate Americas continental model. It’s like they can’t fathom that different cultures call them seperate things.
Which is sad because otherwise they’re some of the most chill people in the world.
I propose a way to fix all this shit:
- Rename NA to Tacoland
- Rename SA to Empanadia
- Rename USA to Northern Mexico
- Rename the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of the Mexicos and Cuba”
Done! Now nobody fights over Vespucci’s name.
Finally, some sanity. Tacolandian rolls off the tongue much better than usian, not that anyone actually says that silly shit out loud. Damn that was close, people almost didn’t know what to call themselves. 🌮✅️
My earliest strongly negative experiences on mass social media (as opposed to niche social media like small forums about specific topics) was on 9gag, before I joined Reddit. The Latin Americans complaining about the use of the term “America” to refer to the country of America were the most arrogant, rude arseholes I had come across. A close second was when they would whinge about the term “soccer”. Even the poms don’t usually bother about that one, unless you’re specifically using that term to call them out.
Who in their right mind uses “soccer”? It’s called football!
Those 3 hour long advert watching sessions you Americans like to engage in have nothing to do with football!
You’re at least the third person to incorrectly assume my nationality today. You’d think in this thread of all places, where the title explicitly calls out the fact that someone made that mistake, people would be more likely to get it right…
I try to not use the /s tag (especially in less serious topics), it makes it more fun that way! 🤣
My apologies. Unfortunately Poe’s Law is very much at play in this subject. I’ve seen far too many people sincerely say what you just said (and I’m now wondering whether or not XTL did the same as you) to be able to take that as a joke.
No feet, no balls, not football.
!confidentlyincorrect
Even the poms don’t usually bother about that one, unless you’re specifically using that term to call them out.
Fun fact, both names for that game are British in origin, so if any of us ever do complain at you for it you can remind them that it’s their own fault
Tell that to @[email protected], who came in just before you in my notifications inbox (though that’s reverse chronological, so obviously your comment was written much earlier…)edit: disregard. They were apparently trollingBut yeah, the history of football as a class of sports is really interesting. You may know this, but I strongly suspect at least some people who might read this comment won’t know it, especially the sorts of people who get upset by “soccer”, so I’ll share, briefly, some of the interesting history.
Football sports throughout England have a long history, but football codes as we know them today really only begin to take shape in the 19th century. Different schools and towns would have different variations in rules around things like catching the ball, tripping, “hacking”, and a whole bunch of other factors. If two teams from different regions wanted to play, they first had to agree to a set of compromise rules. Sort of like how “International Rules Football” is a compromise between Australian Rules Football and Gaelic Football occasionally used for matches between AFL players and Gaelic Football players in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Rugby School actually codifiers their set of rules far earlier than the Football Association, but later in the 19th century, a bunch of different clubs get together to form the Football Association to try to come up with a standard set of rules everyone can use. Ultimately, Rugby School and a few others cannot come to agreement with those who remain in the Football Association, and so we end up with rugby football and association football, sometimes called rugger and soccer for short. Both sports end up evolving a lot after this stage, but this is where we can first concretely start talking about rugby and soccer as discrete sports. But both share a common history, and neither has a better claim to the name “football”.
American football also evolves more or less out of this same place, coming not out of rugby as is sometimes claimed, but out of that pre-standardisation football, albeit clearly with more influence from the rules that would end up becoming rugby than those that would end up becoming soccer. The same is largely true of Australian football, which drew heavily from Eton and Rugby school rules, among others, though there are some claims also that it may have borrowed from indigenous Australian games, or that it shares a history with Gaelic football. Even Gaelic football traces its origins in much the same way, albeit out of local Irish football-type games rather than schools like Eton and Rugby, along with much later influences from England after rugby and association football started being played in Ireland.
what do you want from me and in what way i’m supposedly involved there at all? i have never dm’d you and while i have seen you around i’m pretty sure i have never responded to you before. maybe someone set up display name in a way that got you confused
I will sign off on this as a good summary of it. I played a fair bit of rugby and Gaelic when I was younger, so I am perhaps a little less likely than the average Brit to instinctually assume soccer is the One True Football™ (though I do still habitually call it football)
We’ve got a few places in Scotland that still play a game or two of what is essentially pre-code football each year, most famously the Kirkwall Ba’ Game on one of the islands just off the northern tip of mainland Scotland. The pitch is the high street, and the teams are essentially “anyone from north of the market cross” vs “anyone from south of it”
If the first really bad experiences you had on the Internet were disagreements about the ways English is used around the world, then congratulations might be in order.
hell yeah brother this country is called america and if the latinos dont like it well too bad were not gonna let them mess with our perfectly good english i cant wait for trump to finally make english the national language and dissolve statehood into a meaningless distinction under his divine rule so we can get rid of that useless UnItEd StAtEs part in fact lets change the names of the continents to get rid of the confusion we can call south and central america spainica or something and make canada part of our country so we can just call it america
I get that you’re riffing but god it pisses me off that Mexico is constantly treated as part of Central, not North, America.
Now here is a hill I die on: most Central America is part of North America, except the eastern half of the territory controlled by Panama.
Still not as important as saying “European peninsula”.
If you look at their comment history, I’m pretty sure that user is a serial troll. Not really worth engaging with.
unaccurate
Are you really doubting the sincerity of ChadMcTruth who has dedicated his entire
lifeprofile to protecting our Freeze Peach?!?!!
