Asturian-American Migration Forum

Based on comments made in another thread I came up with the idea of giving the term Unitedstadian an encyclopedic definition, much in the same way that Spaniard or German has.

This is a first draft, I’m posting it here to get comments on both what may be wrong and needs to be changed/clarified, and what is OK or if it needs improvement. My intent is to post it in Wikipedia for further discussion once we have a somewhat decent article. It will set some parameters as to when and how to use the term.

All comments are welcome, specially if you think something is wrong, that is the best way to get it right, by pointing out the flaws. If you don’t contribute, my assumption will be that you think it can’t be improved upon.

Thank you,

Elí

-----

Basado en comentarios hechos en otro telar tuve la idea de darle una definicion enciclopedica al termino Unitedstadian (Estadounidense en Ingles) de la misma manera que Español o Aleman estan definidos.

Esta es un primer borrador, lo pongo aca para recibir comentarios sobre tanto lo que esta bien y/o necesita ser mejorado, como lo que te parece esta mal en el articulo. Mi intencion es eventualmente el ponerlo en Wikipedia para una discusion mas a fondo cuando tengamos un articulo decente. El articulo va a asentar los parametros dentro de los que se puede usar el termino Unitedstadian.

Todos los comentarios son bienvenidos, especialmente si te parece que hay algo erroneo, esa es la mejor manera de tener algo correcto al final ya que todas las fallas han sido resaltadas y examinadas. Si no contribuyes voy a asumir que te parece el articulo no puede ser mejorado.

Gracias,

Elí

========================================================



Unitedstadian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from American)
Jump to: navigation, search

This article deals with the history of the word Unitedstadian.

The word Unitedstadian is an informal term used to refer to;

* the citizens of the United States of America which consists of the 50 States of the Union
* does not include the possessions and territories of the United States in the world; American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Northern Marianas, Palau, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, etc.
* sometimes the citizens of other nations residents of the United States of America.

The word Unitedstadian generally means belonging to or associated with the United States in one of the first two senses above (i.e. the United States or the island of Puerto Rico). However, the term has a range of related usages, as described in this article.

Etymologically, these words are closely related to United States, the name of the dominant North American nation.
Contents


* 1 Etymology
* 2 Estadounidense and Estadunidense
* 3 Evolution of the term 'Unitedstadian'
* 4 Modern use of the term 'Unitedstadian'
* 5 See also
* 6 Further reading


Etymology

The etymology of the name Unitedstadian derives from a Spanish and Portuguese word, Estadounidense and Estadunidense respectively, a reference to the citizenship and nationality of the people of the United States. There is an interesting rationality for this word; the United States being the only nation that failed to name itself in America chose instead to use the designation of a form of government and borrowed the name of the continent in which it was located becoming at it’s emancipation from Great Britain the ‘United States of America’.

In English the dominant language of the people in the United States of America, people referred to the citizens of the U.S. as ‘Americans’. In the rest of America there are two main languages Spanish and Portuguese, in these languages people referred to the citizens of the United States as Estadounidense and Estadunidense respectively. That situation worked just fine for two centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese speaking people of America would generally speaking not interact with the English speaking people of the United States. When literature was translated from one language to the other, translators would (properly so) change the word American in English to Estadounidense in Spanish or the Portuguese version Estadunidense.

With the arrival of the net, people that in the past would’ve never interacted with each other realized that the term ‘American’ was used by the citizens of the United States to denote citizenship. Since all the people in the American continent refer to themselves as Americans when speaking in continental terms, this situation creates a linguistic conflict. Native Spanish and Portuguese speaking people had a profound dislike of the status-quo in English, but found themselves powerless to change the way in which the people they had always known as Estadunidenses or Estadounidenses referred to themselves.

In 1998 Americans intent on giving the citizens of the United States an option to call themselves something other than ‘Americans’ when denoting citizenship coined the word ‘Unitedstadian’ on the internet. The introduction of the word has faced some resistance among Unitedstadians, as U.S. citizens were used to calling themselves Americans. However, most Americans hope that Unitedstadians will realize that the use of a word that is universally used to describe the inhabitants of the American continent, to denote citizenship of the United States is abusive, and arrogant, it shows conceit and disdain towards the rest of Americans, and that Unitedstadians will eventually embrace the term.


Use of the term 'Unitedstadian'

The modern use of the term 'Unitedstadian' is as an adjective to describe someone or something from the United States of America. It is used as the term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United States. Conservative Unitedstadians may reject this term as offensive, as they are used to the term American. Some people from other nationalities mostly English speaking nations also dislike the term.

It is sometimes used to describe residents of the United States current possessions and territories. This may offend some people, since the natives and residents of U.S. possessions and territories are not eligible for Unitedstadian citizenship.

Geographically, the term can be used in various ways:

* To describe someone from the continental United States
* In the term Unitedstadian, the term for the citizens of the entire territory of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, states that are not continuous.
* The term Unitedstadian has historically been used in Portuguese and Spanish to describe someone or something from the United States. The citizens of the United States have happily accepted and embraced this terminology for over two centuries.


See also

* List of country name etymologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... tymologies
* American http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_word_American
* United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States


Further reading

* Estados Unidos http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadounidense

Hi, Elí,

There are at least two related words: America (the country) and American (which is both a noun - meaning a person from the nation - and an adjective referring to either the people or the nation).

How did Unitedstadian get the "d"? Why isn't it "Unitedstatian"? Maybe that's a linguistic improbability.

The word Unitedstadian is an informal term used to refer to;

Why "informal"?

* sometimes the citizens of other nations residents of the United States of America.

I don't quite understant that. Maybe you meant this:
* sometimes the citizens of other nations who reside in the United States of America.

the United States being the only nation that failed to name itself in America chose instead to use the designation of a form of government and borrowed the name of the continent in which it was located

That's a pretty liberal interpretation. We'd say we did name ourselves. I think I'd stick to the facts and just describe how we named ourselves. That part is pretty interesting, since we rarely think about it.

Since all the people in the American continent refer to themselves as Americans

Is it the "continent" or the hemisphere? I'd think we were in the same hemisphere but on two continents.

but found themselves powerless to change the way in which the people they had always known as Estadunidenses or Estadounidenses referred to themselves.

That's true. And that's why I'd leave it out. We are rarely if ever able to change each other, so it seems self-defeating to mention this.

In 1998 Americans intent on giving the citizens of the United States an option

Were they New World people or people from the United States? This is unclear. If it's not US people, I'd say hemispheric Americans or something to designate it.

The introduction of the word has faced some resistance among Unitedstadians

Some? Ha ha ha... I'd just say "faced resistance".
Actually, the awareness of the issue is nil, too.

the use of a word that is universally used to describe the inhabitants of the American continent, to denote citizenship of the United States is abusive, and arrogant, it shows conceit and disdain towards the rest of Americans

I think that it's helpful to describe how others in the hemisphere feel when they hear us use "American" and "America" as we do. But it's totally different to assume that those who use the words to describe themselves feel or intend any abuse, arrogance, conceit, or distain toward the rest of the hemisphere.

In fact, we could turn this around 180 degrees and say that it's arrogant, abusive, conceited, and distainful to try to tell a people what to call themselves by translating a word from another language and pinning it on that people.

My point is that assigning negative motives to people in the US won't get you anywhere. I think you'll have to think politically, if your goal is convincing the people of the US. That means you'll want to remove incendiary ideas so avoid overly emotional reactions.

The modern use of the term 'Unitedstadian' is as an adjective

As I said before, it's also a noun, and there is also the word "America" to deal with.

I'm not sure "Unitedstadian" would be specifically about citizenship, although that's kind of implied, isn't it? Hmm. I'm not sure about that.

including Alaska and Hawaii, states that are not continuous.

We'd usually say "contiguous".

The citizens of the United States have happily accepted and embraced this terminology for over two centuries.

I'm not getting this. Are we talking about "Americans" here?

What about the argument that this is mostly a language problem? In English it's not a problem, at least not for people from the US.

I'm still non-plused by the idea that I should change because someone else is upset with words I use. Now, if I'm concerned about being effective in relationship with those who are upset, I'd give it some thought, but the average US person isn't going to have much relationship with Chilenos or Brasileros. And the Mexicans and others from south of us who we do have contact with are often trying to become "Americans" just like us. (Hey, this could even explain why they've come! They already thought of themselves as "Americans", so they just came on up!)

Well, obviously you've not yet convinced me, but that's probably not a worthwhile goal! I hope this is helpful feedback.

Let me know when you're ready to publish it and I'll help with punctuation.

Hey Art,

“How did Unitedstadian get the "d"? Why isn't it "Unitedstatian"? Maybe that's a linguistic improbability.”

You are absolutely right. In Spanish we say Estadounidense upon translating it I transferred the d from the Spanish as supposed to using the words in English, Unitedstatian it is. I googled Unitedstatian and it returns 306 results (ten times more than Unitedstadian), it appears that they are mostly from Europeans, it occurs to me that most Spanish speaking people like myself made the same mistake of transposing the ‘d’, while the Europeans didn’t have that problem because in their native tongue they didn’t have that word, interesting.... very interesting...

“Why "informal"? ”

It occurs to me that until the U. S. government accepts the designation as official it must be ‘informal’, maybe ‘unofficial’ would be more accurate. Which beckons the question, what is the official name?

“I don't quite understant that. Maybe you meant this:
* sometimes the citizens of other nations who reside in the United States of America. ”

Good point, I did. However, yesterday I didn’t realize that resident aliens are not Unitedstatians, has been removed.

“Quote:
‘the United States being the only nation that failed to name itself in America chose instead to use the designation of a form of government and borrowed the name of the continent in which it was located’

That's a pretty liberal interpretation. We'd say we did name ourselves. I think I'd stick to the facts and just describe how we named ourselves. That part is pretty interesting, since we rarely think about it. ”

It was an attempt at condensing the following paragraph taken from wikipedia on country name etymologies, I have now included the full paragraph to make it clear;

{United States of America: "United States" comes from the end of the Declaration of Independence, "WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled...". The preamble to the U.S. Constitution reiterated the phrase: "We the People of the United States..." (The authors of these two documents probably used the phrase "united states" in place of a list of colonies/states because they remained uncertain at the time of drafting which colonies/states would sign off on the sentiments therein.) The geographic term "America" specifies the states' home on the American continent, named for European explorer Amerigo Vespucci.}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... tymologies

“Is it the "continent" or the hemisphere? I'd think we were in the same hemisphere but on two continents. ”

The northern and southern hemispheres are separated at the equator, so that wouldn’t apply. It is socially speaking one continent, politically speaking there are three North, Central and South, even though geologically speaking they are only two continents with one name.

“ Quote:
‘but found themselves powerless to change the way in which the people they had always known as Estadunidenses or Estadounidenses referred to themselves.’

That's true. And that's why I'd leave it out. We are rarely if ever able to change each other, so it seems self-defeating to mention this. ”

How then could we explain the coining of the term? Without a reason it would appear arbitrary and capricious, wouldn’t it? I’m not attempting to support this particular statement, rather explain the need for the new terminology.

“Were they New World people or people from the United States? This is unclear. If it's not US people, I'd say hemispheric Americans or something to designate it. ”

Good point, changed to ‘non-U.S. Americans’ I thought of continental Americans but it occurs to me that Unitedstatians would sooner call everybody else that, rather than adopt the new term... lol

“Some? Ha ha ha... I'd just say "faced resistance".
Actually, the awareness of the issue is nil, too. ”

yeah no doubt, done. I don’t think this will change any time soon. If it is to stick it must be a grass roots term, if all of a sudden some big wig uses the term and it becomes popular overnight, I believe it is more likely to be a temporary fad than actual change. If I can get just two people to use the term, and they can get just two people, and they can get ...

“My point is that assigning negative motives to people in the US won't get you anywhere. I think you'll have to think politically, if your goal is convincing the people of the US. That means you'll want to remove incendiary ideas so avoid overly emotional reactions. ”

Good point, I hadn't realized that as phrased it was doing that. Do you think it better if it is changed to be included at

{Native Spanish and Portuguese speaking people had a profound dislike of the status-quo in English, feeling that the word as used is abusive, and arrogant, it shows conceit and disdain towards the rest of Americans. }

or simply leave it out altogether? I’ve included it in the former on this version.

“Quote:
‘The modern use of the term 'Unitedstadian' is as an adjective’

As I said before, it's also a noun, and there is also the word "America" to deal with.

I'm not sure "Unitedstadian" would be specifically about citizenship, although that's kind of implied, isn't it? Hmm. I'm not sure about that. ”

huh, ok... I’m a little ‘turulato’ here. How about;

The modern use of the term 'Unitedstatian' is as both an adjective and a noun, used to describe someone or something from the United States of America. It is used as the term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United States, it does not include resident aliens living in the United States.

“We'd usually say ‘contiguous’ ”

cool, didn’t realize one was colloquial and not the other, thanks.

“Quote:
‘The citizens of the United States have happily accepted and embraced this terminology for over two centuries.’

I'm not getting this. Are we talking about "Americans" here? ”

Yes, the idea I was trying to convey was/is that Unitedstatians have never had an issue (not as far as I know) with the term Estadounidense/Estadunidense, and that Unitedstatian scholars have known these terms forever. On the other hand in Spanish (don’t know of Portuguese literature) we can find references to the misuse of the words ‘America’ and ‘Americans’ by Unitedstatians. I would need to research and find out if Unitedstatian authors refer to U.S. citizens as ‘Americanos’ or ‘Estadounidenses’ when writing in Spanish.

“What about the argument that this is mostly a language problem? In English it's not a problem, at least not for people from the US.”

Exactly, and I don’t think we will be able to convince any U.S. citizen to use the word Unitedstatian to describe himself tomorrow. The intent is to give the rest of Americans (much like myself, those that are complaining on the boards all over the net) the moral validation our feelings need, and the knowledge that there is a new term to refer to U.S. citizens. With time it may become accepted among Unitedstatians, but first it needs to become the norm among non-U.S. Americans. Then people like you and others may start to think about accepting it.

Don’t take this the wrong way but, don’t you think that “I'm still non-plused by the idea that I should change because someone else is upset with words I use ... ” is just a little arrogant, abusive and....

Excellent post, great points! Thanx,
May a hundred happy virgins dance on your birthday.

Elí

So we have;

====================================================
Unitedstatian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from American and Unitedstadian)
Jump to: navigation, search

This article deals with the history of the word Unitedstatian.

The word Unitedstatian is an informal term used to refer to;

* the citizens of the United States of America which consists of the 50 States of the Union
* does not include the possessions and territories of the United States in the world; American Samoa, Guam, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Northern Marianas, Palau, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, etc.


The word Unitedstatian generally means belonging to or associated with the United States in one of the first two senses above (i.e. the United States or the island of Puerto Rico). However, the term has a range of related usages, as described in this article.

Etymologically, these words are closely related to United States, the name of the dominant North American nation.
Contents


* 1 Etymology
* 2 Estadounidense and Estadunidense
* 3 Evolution of the term 'Unitedstatian'
* 4 Modern use of the term 'Unitedstatian'
* 5 See also
* 6 Further reading


Etymology

The etymology of the name Unitedstatian derives from a Spanish and Portuguese word, Estadounidense and Estadunidense respectively, a reference to the citizenship and nationality of the people of the United States. There is an interesting rationality for this word; the United States being the only nation that failed to name itself in America chose instead to use the designation of a form of government and borrowed the name of the continent in which it was located becoming at it’s emancipation from Great Britain the ‘United States of America’. United States of America: "United States" comes from the end of the Declaration of Independence, "WE, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS, Assembled...". The preamble to the U.S. Constitution reiterated the phrase: "We the People of the United States..." (The authors of these two documents probably used the phrase "united states" in place of a list of colonies/states because they remained uncertain at the time of drafting which colonies/states would sign off on the sentiments therein.) The geographic term "America" specifies the states' home on the American continent, named for European explorer Amerigo Vespucci

In English the dominant language of the people in the United States of America, people referred to the citizens of the U.S. as ‘Americans’. In the rest of America there are two main languages Spanish and Portuguese, in these languages people referred to the citizens of the United States as Estadounidense and Estadunidense respectively. That situation worked just fine for two centuries, the Spanish and Portuguese speaking people of America would generally speaking not interact with the English speaking people of the United States. When literature was translated from one language to the other, translators would (properly so) change the word American in English to Estadounidense in Spanish or the Portuguese version Estadunidense.

With the arrival of the net, people that in the past would’ve never interacted with each other realized that the term ‘American’ was used by the citizens of the United States to denote citizenship. Since all the people in the American continent refer to themselves as Americans when speaking in continental terms, this situation creates a linguistic conflict. Native Spanish and Portuguese speaking people had a profound dislike of the status-quo in English, feeling that the word as used is abusive, and arrogant, it shows conceit and disdain towards the rest of Americans, but found themselves powerless to change the way in which the people they had always known as Estadunidenses or Estadounidenses referred to themselves.

In 1998 non-U.S. Americans intent on giving the citizens of the United States an option to call themselves something other than ‘Americans’ when denoting citizenship coined the word ‘Unitedstadian’ or correctly written ‘Unitedstatian’ on the internet. The introduction of the word has faced resistance among Unitedstatians, as U.S. citizens were used to calling themselves Americans. However, most Americans hope that Unitedstatians will realize that the use of a word that is universally used to describe the inhabitants of the American continent, to denote citizenship of the United States is abusive, and arrogant, it shows conceit and disdain towards the rest of Americans, and that Unitedstatians will eventually embrace the term.


Use of the term 'Unitedstatian'

The modern use of the term 'Unitedstatian' is as both an adjective and a noun, used to describe someone or something from the United States of America. It is used as the term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United States, it does not include resident aliens living in the United States. Conservative Unitedstatians may reject this term as offensive, as they are used to the term ‘American’. Some people from other nationalities mostly English speaking nations, also dislike the term.

It is sometimes used to describe residents of the United States current possessions and territories. This may offend some people, since the natives and residents of U.S. possessions and territories are not eligible for Unitedstatian citizenship.

Geographically, the term can be used in various ways:

* To describe someone from the continental United States
* In the term Unitedstatian, the term for the citizens of the entire territory of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, states that are not contiguous.
* The term Unitedstatian has historically been used in Portuguese and Spanish to describe someone or something from the United States. The citizens of the United States have happily accepted and embraced this terminology as used by Latin Americans for over two centuries.


See also

* List of country name etymologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... tymologies
* American http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_the_word_American
* United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States


Further reading

* Estados Unidos http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estadounidense

Hi, Elí,

I'm not sure about "Unitedstatian" vs. "Unitedstadian", but we could use the "t" in English because there are lots of words that end in "-tian". I'm guessing that the "t" would make more sense to English speakers.

JoAnne and I were talking about your mission tonight. When I mentioned how confusing it was to keep straight which meaning of "American" we were using, she thought that this problem suggests a strategy. If South and Latin Americans were to regularly use "American" to mean 'New World', maybe people in the US will get tired of trying to figure it out and change their own name.

You'd have to convince a lot of people to do it to get that to work, and they'd have to talk with gringos regularly, but there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people here. Of course, that's a long shot, but it's got the advantage of not demanding or asking for a change, so it's more likely to be successful.


I still don't think "continent" makes sense. If you look it up, "hemisphere" can mean east and west or north and south. It's half a sphere, and you can divide it in different ways.

Or if you don't like hemisphere, I'd probably use "New World" rather than continent. But I'm guessing that you're going to tell me that New World is tainted, too, right!?


Yeah, your new version about the noun and adjective uses is good.

Elí wrote:...don’t you think that “I'm still non-plused by the idea that I should change because someone else is upset with words I use ... ” is just a little arrogant, abusive and.... Wink

This is an incredibly difficult and subtle. I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, but let's see if this makes sense.

I think there are four related thoughts that add up to the point I'm trying to express.

The first is that I can't know your motivations and vice versa. I'm not even sure I can know my own motivations. The "motivations" of mine that I think I know are probably just rationalizations in many cases. So, to impute a motive to anyone is risky and probably not helpful.

The second is that blame is a dead end. What happens when you blame someone for something that happens to you? The other person gets defensive and you get even less than you had before! It's certainly true that there are aggressive and abusive people. But blaming them is very unlikely to change them. If we want something, we have to reach for it ourselves. Blame is a victim's game.

The third is that to some degree our feelings are lousy guides for living. This may be an odd thought. I'll explain.

First, let's distinquish between feelings, emotions, and intellect. Emotions are really primitive, biological processes which we have in common with many animals (and who knows what else). Emotions are something we share with frogs and earthworms and yet we often hear people talking as though their emotions were their higher selves. That's wishful thinking.

Feelings are that part of emotions that the intellect can be aware of. There are aspects of emotions that we are unlikely to be aware of. (Just think of the vastness of the "mind-body" connection, such as how our stomachs react to stress.)

Intellect came about much later in the evolutionary process. We could say that it's less "primitive". Although when we developed intellect, we didn't lose the emotions. Our emotions are still under the surface, churning away, regulating our bodies, and we're always responding to those emotions, even though we generally don't know it.

Intellect has the ability to observe feelings and also to choose to behave in such a way that feelings don't control us quite so strongly. This isn't easy. None of us will ever perfect this skill. In fact, many of us don't get very far in developing this ability and, boy, does it show! (Just look at how emotional our political life here in the US is.)

Feelings offer us useful information, but that data is mostly, I think, about how we are responding to the environment, especially how we're reacting to other people in our emotional sphere. Unfortunately, the built-in emotional reactions that we're born with are, in terms of evolution, very primitive.

On average, these innate emotional response patterns were obviously "good enough to survive", or we wouldn't be here. But there are other ways of behaving that are more sophisticated. We can do better--by using our intellect to see the patterns and by trying out different kinds of responses.

If we are controlled by our feelings, we aren't as likely to live successful lives. So, in that sense, it's irrelevant whether I'm feeling happy, sad, disgusted, or angry. What's more important is to figure out what activities and goals give my brief life meaning, and to be sure I'm moving in that direction. Feelings can be pleasurable and it's healthy to run with them some of the time. They're not bad, but being dominated by feelings would be a waste of my time in this body.

The fourth is that maturity means living from an inner core of knowing who I am and what's important to me. Lots of people are very sensitive to the reactions of others, but they've not spent much time being sensitive to what activities or goals make them feel most alive. The more a person worries about the reactions of others, the more anxiety and the less "self" they'll have. They're also be more vulnerable to all kinds of emotional, physical, and relational dysfunction.

We have to choose how we're going to spend our energies. It's pretty obvious that we can't make everyone happy. The simple fact that someone is unhappy with me is not enough for me to act. It's not clear that my actions could change their feelings, that they have correctly identified the cause of the feeling, or that the cause is even in the external world.

Trying to make people happy strikes me as a hopeless quest--not that it isn't a popular one!

So, in brief, there are at least four reasons why someone else's feelings are not a good basis for my action:
1. We can't know each others' motivations (and maybe not even our own).
2. It's useless to blame others. We're the only ones we can get to do something.
3. Feelings and our reactions to feelings are a primitive way of being in the world. Intellect offers us more sophisticated options.
4. Being driven by the others' demands is contrary to self-definition and actualization.


Let's assume for a moment that I was highly sensitive to others' feelings. If I were to adopt "Unitedstatian", I'd make you and a couple of other people I interact with mildly happy. But I'd irritate everyone else every time I said the darn word. My communication would be less effective because people wouldn't know what I was talking about. So even if there are more non-US Americans on the globe, in my own little piece of the world, I'm going to be irritating many more people than I'm making happy. Which is the "greater" good? And even after all that struggle, I'd still have done nothing to define a self. It's not a tempting option.

But, hey, I'm only human, so about those happy dancing virgins....

Art, that was an eloquent way to put that. I grew up in rural West Virginia, though, so my advice to Elí is that I'm afraid he's pissin' up a stump.

“ If South and Latin Americans were to regularly use "American" to mean 'New World', maybe people in the US will get tired of trying to figure it out and change their own name.”

The thing is we do, we always have done so. For instance look up ‘Libertador Americano’ in google you’ll get over 100,000 entries. Look up ‘Americano’ in the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes you’ll get 2,300 results none of which refer to Unitedstatians. Back to Google set your language preferences to Spanish only to avoid all references that may originate in the US, search for ‘Americano’ you’ll get over 2.5 million results the vast majority has nothing to do with anything US related (some still filter through), I could go on and on with examples on each of the libraries of America and you’ll get the same thing or newspapers or libraries in the rest of America.

That said, I find that in newspapers across America with more and more frequency the word ‘Americano’ is being used to denote Unitedstatian citizenship. It was one thing when the use of the word was contained to the English language, however bad it might be it was in the English world. Since it is now making inroads into the Spanish speaking world we must follow Bush’s policies here “take the fight to their territory” if we sit idle in time it will be an established pattern and nothing will change that. The best defense is a good offense.

“they'd have to talk with gringos regularly”

You should know that in South America gringos means ‘white’ not Unitedstatian. Since most Unitedstatians happen to be white they are called gringos, the word also applies to Europeans and locals i/e myself and my family were ‘gringos’ while in Peru. I have never seen anybody call ‘gringo’ a black Unitedstatian. While it may be true it might’ve originated in Mexico to refer to Unitedstatians, the accepted use has always been as stated above. It did not denote nationality, however, because of the internet and the preponderance of US literature in the matter Hispanics customs, traditions and language is being molded into Unitedstatian culture. I’m willing to bet that this will create a thousand Bin Ladens in America, it is in the US’s best interest to allow neighboring societies room to breath or suffer the consequences i/e South America is turning decidedly towards the left, something it has never ever done in free elections i/e Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile already have socialist governments it looks like Peru and Colombia are about to follow soon. If you push too hard people will fight back.

“it's got the advantage of not demanding or asking for a change”

Actually I’m not doing either, it would be impossible to do that. All I want to do is give us (the rest of the world) something to call Unitedstatians other than Americans, if we want to do this. Clearly most wont in the Unitedstatian’s areas of influence, for instance at work I never brought this up although they would regularly raise the ‘American’ flag.... I was like yeah right ... the only time I resent that flag is when it is called American lol however, I never brought this up because it will no doubt be counterproductive in my life. Here or in my personal life however, is entirely another matter. Back to the subject at hand though, all I want is to give us something to call Unitedstatians other than American, IF they want to do that. The thing is most Unitedstatians instantly say things like that word doesn’t exist, don’t make up words etc. and most non-US Americans lack the assertiveness to stand up to the bullying and promptly back down. Clearly that has never been my problem lol

"I still don't think "continent" makes sense. "

Ok think I follow your reasoning now, you are right the brain is divided in left and right hemispheres I’m just not used to using the word in that sense, that is my own shortcoming though. So, we change that to read “Since all the people in the American hemisphere refer to themselves as Americans when speaking in continental terms” think that makes a little more sense and it appears (to me) to be precise, am I right? I prefer hemisphere to New World the former is more precise, plus it doesn’t have social connotations.

“This is an incredibly difficult and subtle. I'm still trying to ...”

And everything that follows is extremely well written, it was a good read, thank you for posting it. It occurs to me that you may be very good at philosophical discussions, I may want to follow up on what you’ve said at a later time in a different thread.

“Let's assume for a moment that I was highly sensitive to others' feelings. If I were to adopt "Unitedstatian", I'd make you and a couple of other people I interact with mildly happy. But I'd irritate everyone else every time I said the darn word.”

My feelings exactly, think I pretty much said the same thing or at least meant to convey the same idea above. Only after the word becomes common place I would use it in a work environment.

“But, hey, I'm only human...” Ha ha I ran into this yesterday, if you have 5 minutes to kill hop on over to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/ ... ndex.shtml
it is a test on facial perception and you get to find out whether your ideal partner is an extrovert or an introvert. Very cool, it had me at about 10% more in tune with myself and my idea of what my partner should be like than most.


--------------------

Hi Xose,

Art, that was an eloquent way to put that. I grew up in rural West Virginia, though, so my advice to Elí is that I'm afraid he's pissin' up a stump.

I was about to post this and your post came up, I'll simply reply by quoting my own words above "The thing is most Unitedstatians instantly say things like that word doesn’t exist, don’t make up words etc. and most non-US Americans lack the assertiveness to stand up to the bullying and promptly back down. Clearly that has never been my problem lol "

Once again as I was reading your last message I was confused by the multiple meanings of the words "American" and "America". I got it finally. Of course, if you look at almost any word in the dictionary, there are multiple meanings. Jeez, think of the word "gag":

gag verb
1 : prevent from speaking or crying out by stopping up the mouth
2 : retch or cause to retch

gag noun
1 : something that stops up the mouth
2 : laugh-provoking remark or act

That's a wildly differing range of concepts for a three-letter word! We get the meanings by context. In the case of "American" it's more difficult, obviously.

But you're missing the point if you look for Spanish vs. English uses of "American" and "America". (I'm not sure you are, but it sounds like this may be occurring at times.) Sure, it's "estadounidense" in Spanish. I don't think anyone has any issue with that. But when you move into a different language, the names for things change. As Bob said, language isn't logical. It's more like a set of historical accidents, within the boundaries provided by the genetic programming that controls what's possible in our languages.

So, much like what Xose said, you've bumped into one historical accident that you don't like. Personally, I get pretty irritated by the way we spell things in
English. It's absurd that I (as a well-educated native speaker of English who is cares about spelling and is pretty good at it) should have to struggle to spell things right. I'm always looking up words in the dictionary. Am I going to change English orthography? Ha. I could dedicate my life to it and get nowhere. Or, how about this: I don't like the choice of "white" for the White House, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to change that.

I remember when I was studying French, I bumped in to a difficult grammar point. It seemed unnecessarily different from English and I was having a very hard time understanding it. For a long while I wanted the French grammar to change. My test scores went down. Eventually I got realistic and learned the damn thing.

Having an ideal is great for coming up with a vision, a direction, but at some point we have to figure out a way to bend it into a form that we can bring to life. It's a lot like how I've come to think of my body. As a young guy I wanted a perfect-looking body: 2 arms, 2 legs, good teeth, no scars, hair in all the right places, etc. Well, now I'll take whatever I've got and work with it as long as its willing. Gray hair? Less of it? Scars? Fillings galore? Fine. Why should I care much as long as I'm still kicking?

Having said all that... does it strike you as strange that I appear to care about this conversation? It's kind of contradictory, isn't it?! I think what going on is I'm actually defining my understanding of the excellent issues you're raising. You're doing me a favor, Elí! Thanks.


I hadn't realized that "gringo" has multiple meanings. Just looking at the noun aspect we see:

noun
a
(AmL fam & pey--probably should be pej for pejorative) (extranjero) gringo, foreigner (from a non-Spanish speaking country); (norteamericano) Yank (colloq & pej), Yankee (colloq & pej)
b
(Andes fam) (rubio) (m) fair-haired boy/man; (f) fair-haired girl/woman

Another dictionary says:

The word *gringo* is a derogatory term used in Latin America to refer to the white English-speakers, usually American, especially in the context of alleged economic, cultural, and political interference in Latin America. One rather fanciful theory traces its origin to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 and the song "Green Grow the Rushes-oh", supposedly sung by the American troops. According to another theory it is a corruption of *griego* or "Greek", in the sense of anything foreign and unintelligible, as in the English expression "it's all Greek to me."

It sounds like you're using the Andean variant. Other uses refer to Yankees... otherwise known as you know what.


We've talked about increasing global cultural homogeneity in other threads. I think it would be a mistake to see it as being controlled by any group or any country. The word "American" isn't getting into South American newspapers because someone in the US is forcing or paying them to do that. It's like the complaints about Wal-Mart: We all make little choices that add up creating our collective reality, and our specific decisions probably have a lot more to do with the way we're wired than any conscious thought. No one has forced us to shop at Wal-Mart. No, but Wal-Mart has excelled at figuring out how to use our innate predispositions to get us to shop there.

Of course, Wal-Mart has both realistic and quixotic enemies, and for good reason. For example, their not providing health care to their workers and dumping those workers onto the state-funded medical plans is despicable.

Globalization has its enemies, too. Anytime painful change occurs, people will blame someone and rebel. Whether they've attacked the true source of the pain is another matter.


Yes, "American hemisphere" sounds good to me. Of course, to a US American, it might sound like a sphere of influence!


As I continue reading your message, I find myself wondering if what your your goal is to increase awareness of a set of problems (an ambiguous definition, a sense of cultural, economic, and political domination, etc.). Sure, you'd like to fix it, but maybe you're first of all interested in getting people to think about it?

It seems to me that those two reasons might what you could put in the part about the reason for the Wikipedia listing and the development of this new English word.

Hey Art,

Been kinda tied up elsewhere for a couple of days, I saw your post several days ago but since I didn’t have a preconceived idea thought I should give myself some time to think, so that I could find out what is it that I think about this.

Sure, it's "estadounidense" in Spanish. I don't think anyone has any issue with that. But when you move into a different language, the names for things change.

Agreed, like for instance the name for Estadounidenses is changing as we speak in Spanish. So since that is happening because of the misuse of the word ‘American’ in English, it appears to me that it would be proper to do the same in English, hence Unitedstatian. Conversing with a guy next door he says that ‘Unitedstatian’ would never stick anyways, people in the US tend to make things easier to say than that, if anything they would soon change it to ‘Statian’....

So, much like what Xose said, you've bumped into one historical accident that you don't like.

YUP U B right.

Am I going to change English orthography? Ha. I could dedicate my life to it and get nowhere.

It’s not my intent to change the language, if it changes it will happen because the majority prefer Unitedstatian over ‘American’ when referring to US citizens. My intent is simply to provide an alternative, whether it becomes a viable word or not is another matter entirely.

Having an ideal is great for coming up with a vision, a direction, but at some point we have to figure out a way to bend it into a form that we can bring to life.

Agreed

Having said all that... does it strike you as strange that I appear to care about this conversation? It's kind of contradictory, isn't it?! I think what going on is I'm actually defining my understanding of the excellent issues you're raising. You're doing me a favor, Elí! Thanks.

This is the part that got me to think the most. First I would have to explain how I come up with ideas/concepts about matters I know very little or nothing. In this case I have to speculate as to what may possibly motivate you in one regard or another. I have a basic understanding on were you stand on several issues whether political or social, but since I don’t really know you my conception of you has to be done by association. What other people I know that generally speaking hold the same beliefs of you are like will likely point me in the general direction of what you are likely to be. To come up with a reason I first attempted to explain all the possible venues I could think of as to why you may be interested in something that would appear to be contradictory to your interests. Then I attempted to understand your motivations for such a thing and lastly what you stand to gain if anything, and if there is nothing to be gained what might the motivation be?

It appears to me that you don’t have an issue with discussing the term or even proposing ways in which to improve the article because you don’t feel threatened by it. If you were threatened by it you would attack it or ignore it, not doing so demonstrates your confidence that aiding something that is contrary to your interests does not threaten you. As to the motivations you may have are simple; If this was to be created the ‘proper’ way to create it in English should be xyz, and you enjoy the linguistic challenge. What do you stand to gain from the exercise is in going through the exercise itself. As you are aware off I am no more religious than a cow or atheist than a horse, supernatural creatures and their existence is a non-issue for me. However, I’ve often engaged in religious conversations and debates. One of my preferred method of debating the issue when I run into brick walls (when holding intelligent debates on the matter, not because the book says so) is to switch sides with my opponent, I attempt to make my statements invalid using his point of view, if I succeed in doing so obviously my position is untenable and change the approach until I can no longer out-debate myself. It occurs to me that you (whether intentionally or not) may engage is somewhat similar behavior, it not only fortifies your own position through better understanding of your own convictions but gives you a better understanding of the other person’s point of view.

It sounds like you're using the Andean variant. Other uses refer to Yankees... otherwise known as you know what.

Actually it is much more than an Andean variant, it is more of a South American variant if anything. I haven’t known many Central Americans but I’ve met plenty of most of South America and we all use it in the same manner.

The word "American" isn't getting into South American newspapers because someone in the US is forcing or paying them to do that.

You are correct, it is a matter of ‘area of influence’, the weak usually tend to mold their actions, mannerisms and vocabulary to that of the stronger ones.

Globalization has its enemies, too. Anytime painful change occurs, people will blame someone and rebel. Whether they've attacked the true source of the pain is another matter.

Agreed

Yes, "American hemisphere" sounds good to me. Of course, to a US American, it might sound like a sphere of influence!

I know, thought of that too but it also occurred to me that if in time they do understand what it really means it would become a ‘Eureka’ moment (although almost certainly not one they would like).

As I continue reading your message, I find myself wondering if what your your goal is to increase awareness of a set of problems (an ambiguous definition, a sense of cultural, economic, and political domination, etc.). Sure, you'd like to fix it, but maybe you're first of all interested in getting people to think about it?

Actually it’s more like what I said above, the idea is that of providing a place of reference. Often people when using the term get bullied and that’s that for that. If however, they were to have a source to refer their detractors to when confronted with “that doesn’t exist” and so on, a place where the term and it’s used is clearly explained, that article will do the talking for Americans that feel there is a need for this word and at the same time do not excel at debating in a foreign language. This may make Americans feel more at ease at using the word Unitedstatian, specially in front of U.S. citizens.

It seems to me that those two reasons might what you could put in the part about the reason for the Wikipedia listing and the development of this new English word.

My own reasons notwithstanding, this appears to be the way to go.

Elí

Okey-dokey. As I said before, I'd be happy to look it over to suggest corrections for typos, punctuation issues, etc. So let me know when it's ready to go to press.

------------------

Vale. Como te dije antes, estaría contento revisarlo y sugerir correcciones de errata, problemas de puntuación, etc. Dime cuando está listo para entrar en prensa.