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by leephillips 1515 days ago
Among native English speakers, “American” almost always means someone from the United States. That’s partly because, unlike every other country, the US doesn’t have a convenient adjective for its residents.

However, after a few years in Central America I’ve broken myself of this usage. Spanish has an adjective for US people (aside from gringo, etc.) that I can use in Spanish, and when speaking English I find some other phrase. Note also that for many people in South and Central America “America” is what US people call “the Americas”: one continent, not three.
1 comments
skeptikal 1515 days ago
The problem is that the adjective “United Statian” is a mouthful; Yankee (my dad’s favorite) unfair; gringo refers (used to?) to Italians in Argentina.

United States doesn't have an adjective. Colombian would be nice, but its also taken and now problematic.

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notch656a 1515 days ago
>The problem is that the adjective “United Statian” is a mouthful

Even that can be confusing. United states could also refer to Mexico, which has the actual name "United Mexican States". Someone from Mexico can rightly call themselves from united states.

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