Spanish Infusion

Yame

Yame

New member
Belly Love said:
It's the same thing with "American." American is used to either refer to people from America or more specifically the United States. People can get really offended when someone is referring to just U.S. Citizens and uses the word, Americans, because they feel it's excluding Canada, Mexico, etc. But I think the reason it's this way is because of the terminology itself. You can say someone is Guatamalen, African, Spanish, Russian, Sweedish, but there is no "United Statesian" you have to say, "from the United States". So people just say American.
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American is the proper word to refer to someone who was born in the United States. There is no other word in English, to my knowledge, that fills the same role. In Portuguese, we also call anyone born in the United States "americano," and in Spanish the same thing, although in Spanish there is also the word "estadounidense," but I don't know what Spanish-speaking people actually use it, nor how often.

There is no problem with the word "American." The problem is when people use the word "America" to refer to the US. Last time I checked, America was a continent. This country is called the United States of America, not "America." This used to be a big pet peeve of mine. People coming up to me and asking "so, when did you come to America?" I used to say something like "Um... Brazil is in America. I was born in America. I've always lived in America. I never left America. Do you mean to ask when I came to the US?"
But after 10 years of living here I don't really care anymore, if anyone asks me I just say "10 years ago" and leave it alone.
 
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Greek Bonfire

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
I kind of think the word "Hispanic" is almost like the word "Celtic." At least at one time the Celts were all over the map and sort of took in a lot of tribes. Very different but yet related somehow. Not a very good analogy but when you are talking about a group of "cousins" I can see how this happens. Just my humble opinion.
 
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