Comment by hollerith
4 months ago
"American" has been used by English speakers to refer to residents of the US for 3 centuries.
To change it now (why? to avoid hurting the feelings of people, most of whom do not even speak or read English?) would be harmful. "Harmful" is a strong word, so I will explain.
I don't hate Russia, but if I did, I would like it if the Russian people somehow stopped being able to continue to use the main word they've been using to refer to themselves for centuries. It would make it slightly harder for Russians to have conversations about themselves as a social and political entity and to understand old books about their ancestors.
Web sites influence human behavior by making some operations slightly more difficult than others. E.g., the "Accept all cookies" button is a prominent color whereas the "Reject all cookies" link is less so. The point is that a "trivial inconvenience" that is encountered often (i.e., whenever anyone tries to start a conversation about Americans) might have a significant effect over future decades in making Americans feels less united with their countrymen and discouraging discussion of American identity (because for example "USian" is more awkward to use in a spoken conversation than "American" is).
> "American" has been used by English speakers to refer to residents of the US for 3 centuries.
Sure, US citizens are, after all, a subset of North Americans and are Americans just as are South and Central Americans.
English speakers in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have indeed written many texts and articles in which they discuss the United States of America, events in the USofA, and then move to talk about Americans .. having established the context of which Americans they refer to.
This was explicit in BBC guidelines and UK newspapers of note until perhaps the 1990s.
> I don't hate Russia, but if I did, I would like it if the Russian people somehow felt unable to continue to use the main word they've been using to refer to themselves for centuries.
It's not clear how this comes into play here. If Russian speaking ethnically Russian non citizens of modern Russia refer to themselves as Russian after their family ties to the former Russian Empire then surely anyone in the Americas can equally be referred to as an American.
> "USian" is more awkward to use in a spoken conversation than "American" is).
I've not heard it used in spoken conversation. In text forums where I've seen it used since the 1980s it's shorthand to contract first saying "United States of America" and then referencing US citizens as Americans.