Maybe this is a regional thing but I’ve always called it the US
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Ooosa
I use them interchangeably. 🤷
Thought we were calling it Amerikkka or the imperial core.
Only if you are a tankie
At least tankies have interesting thoughts…
Definitely a regional thing.
Most notably, the region of the United States in the Americas.
Because I’ve been told by people of the other nations of these two continents that it bugs them and I had a nice and easy alternative
I heard in a podcast recently that many people in the US still believed Africa was a country, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is somehow related to their using the name of their continent to designate their own country.
I use “the U.S.” or “States”.
There’s more than one America.
But not more States, united or not…?
Well there are Estados Unitidos, but those are in Mexico
I’ve been lucky enough to travel a fair amount. If I say, “I’m from the States.”, people knew that meant the USA.
They will. They will also know if you say you are from America. My point was that one is no better than the other, from an accuracy point of view. Both have multiple meanings.
Mexicans, Canadians, Brazilians… All from America.
Agreed. And correct. We are not disagreeing. :)
Definitely not, just adding information for readers.
Yet, I’ve never encountered anyone else from around the globe that uses the term “the States” to indicate whichever country they’re from.
The dumber kids I went to middle school with called it America
Granted, that was in the 90s
I’ve noticed this too but it seems like a left vs right thing. But never “the USA”
In Canada we usually refer to you guys as “the States”
Hello neighbor! Very interesting because down here we call ya’ll “the Northern Folk”
That sounds badass I like it
I’m all for a less voracious term by which to refer to ourselves, but it’d help if it were a little neater than “United Statesian.”
I hear almost exclusively people referring to the country as “America”. This was actually a very conscious shift at the turn of the 20th century for people in public life to refer to the country as “America” instead of “the US” or “the United States” as we … acquired overseas territories and weren’t a country only of United States anymore
“This is America! I’ll call it whatever I want!”
I use America a lot
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media. Or they refer to themselves as “the world” like in “this icecream is the best in the world” (without having visited any other country for a significant time to be able to compare). In Europe, US Americans are referred to by different names: the ver popular „yanks“, the German “Amis” (die spinnen doch, die Amis), depends on the country. The prevalence of new names is increasing rapidly, e.g. Trumpists, US twerks, dropkicks.
The “World Series” of baseball is the example I would use. All but one team is based in the US.
Really? So no one ever anywhere but the US uses the exaggeration ‘best in the world’? Get off it.
You sorta had me in the first half, and there is definitely lots of criticism for US treating say….online spaces as an extension of the US, but you chose to go with ‘greatest in the world ice cream’ as the example? I mean, sure.
The irony of saying that only the US uses hyperbole
No, but it certainly seems like hyperbole is the default for Americans. Everything is “awesome, “amazing,” “SO fucking _____,” “the most,” “the worst,” “the best”… I don’t think they understand how strange it sounds to most people, speaking that way about nearly everything.
US Americans seem to refer to themselves as “Americans” a lot on social media.
There isn’t really a better demonym, and certainly none in common usage… USians? US-American (as you mentioned)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
Safe to just call it shithole now.
In my country you can know someone’s politics just by knowing if they call people from the USA americanos or estadounidenses.
estadounidenses
people actually use this in conversation?
When they aren’t imperialist bootlickers.
ps: This is Portuguese. US is Estados Unidos.
When they aren’t imperialist bootlickers.
That’s not an ABSOLUTE true if you’re talking about Brazil. Yes, some people prefer to use the term “estadunidenses” over “americanos” for political reasons, but I’ve seen some people on the far left using the term “americanos” too. The problem is that “estadunidense” is a long word, even if it has just one additional syllable compared to “americanos”. Most Portugese words has 2-3 syllables and people tend to stick with shorter words.
But have you ever seen someone who is not far left using the term estadounidense/estadunidense?
It’s like when you ask if someone smokes and the person says “smoke what?” you already know he’s a pothead xD
Oh I understand the word, it just seems like a lot of syllables.
I’ve seen estadounidense in a Spanish newspaper before, and for some reason this word is very hard for me to spell.
In French too, there’s “états-unien” (also spelled “étatsunien”). It’s little known and rarely used (in France). I have no idea if it’s more often used by left-leaning speakers. (I do use it from time to time, and I think it can be useful to avoid ambiguity.) I can imagine its use being more common and more political in Québec, compared to France where I live?
While writing this comment, I stumbled on a letter from a very angry listener who wrote to the French public radio “arbitrator” (don’t know if it’s the right word) to complain about a guest using the word “étatZunien” (his spelling) several times (gasp) on the air. Apparently, the listener believed the word to be made up, and he wasn’t the only one who wrote to complain about it.
And the arbitrator’s like “um, dude, it’s a real word, it’s in the dictionary since 1961”.
There’s no point linking to that here, really — the letter’s all written in very incoherent French — but it made me laugh.
