Comment by defrost

> I don't think I have EVER seen "American" used to refer to "North and South America" outside of geography.

I'll refrain from reproducing the OED 2nd Edition entry for American unless you really want it, there are three uses as a adjective, five as a noun, the Adjective Use 2, variation c is "United States specific", ( 1.a is "Belonging to the continent of America. Also, of or pertaining to its inhabitants." )

So, you know, a few hundred years of printed use, with citations, says that others have seen it used more widely than yourself.

To be fair, that's all an aside to me .. what has caught my eye in the past few months is a few commenters on HN getting quite upset at "USAian, USofAian, etc" variations appearing here. Clearly this is new to some, others have seen such contractions about forums for four decades.

It follows from pre 2000 (ish) BBC and other style guides that eschew using "Americans" to refer to US citizens until after the context has been established, leading to older BBC articles and broadcasts opening stories with "In the United States today .... Americans reported ...".

From that, in (say) forums discussing i18n and|or l10n (the usual contractions for Internationalization and Localization) with Koreans, South Americans, various Commonwealth types etc. USian became a short fast way to specify which group of North Americans reference might be made to.

This seems straightforward, reasonable, non evangelical, and something a majority immediately "got" w/out batting an eye .. certainly causing less fuss than using "i18n" and other contractions.

I have to agree with you that the meaning of "Usian" is obvious from context in almost every case and it is a really annoying form of pettiness that makes a song and dance about it in protest every time it appears.