"USians"

[alcal]

You probably get you ass kicked for calling an Alabamian a Yankee, methinks.

Can i call you hamburgereaters?

 

[warpus]

I have never had to refer to that country by name at any point in time, so this issue does not affect me at all.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Now, you may say I'm generalising unfairly here, but I'm yet to meet a single US citizen (and I've met truck loads), including my own relatives, who has had the courtesy to even try and pronounce a foreign name correctly (they must be out there somewhere). Reminds me of old fashioned Brits who think they still rule the world.

As long as you remember that it's just that: a generalization.

 

[warpus]

On a more serous note, what real need is there for a word to collectively describe the people of the Western hemisphere? The people of the Eastern hemisphere don't have one, they don't seem too bothered.

I'm an Euraustraliasian. You rang?

 

[mangxema]

Would 'USians' be pronounced to sound like 'fusions'?

This attitude is in evidence yet further when we see citizens of the USA refer to, say, the president of Iran as "Ahmanutjob", "Ahma-din-Laden", "Ahmadinawhatevathefukyoucallhim" and "you-know-who-ejad".

And it's not confined to just world leaders who happen to be disliked. It generally applies to any name that sounds unusual. They simply can't be bothered and, worse, don't see why they should either.

Now, you may say I'm generalising unfairly here, but I'm yet to meet a single US citizen (and I've met truck loads), including my own relatives, who has had the courtesy to even try and pronounce a foreign name correctly (they must be out there somewhere). Reminds me of old fashioned Brits who think they still rule the world.

First off, the languages we do that to just don't translate well. Insult infused names aside, most of us don't know how to spell his name because it's so totally different from anything we have ever seen before, not to mention way longer than any other names we've likely encountered. Plus, spelling is, to an extent, arbitrary when converting between English and Middle Eastern languages. But there's only one '-ejad' we're likely to have heard of, so we know there won't be any confusion when referring him as such.

Second, there are plenty of people who pronounce things 'correctly'; it just depends on the word. We took the word 'cafe' from the French, and we still pronounce it the same way. We even kept the accent mark (when keyboards allow it) even though our language doesn't use any accents at all. We preserve the spellings of the words we assimilate, which leads to our notoriously difficult spelling. We could butcher the spelling like the Spanish do, but by and large we leave it alone. So you can't really say that we disrespect languages.

 

[Masquerouge]

This attitude is in evidence yet further when we see citizens of the USA refer to, say, the president of Iran as "Ahmanutjob", "Ahma-din-Laden", "Ahmadinawhatevathefukyoucallhim" and "you-know-who-ejad".

And it's not confined to just world leaders who happen to be disliked. It generally applies to any name that sounds unusual. They simply can't be bothered and, worse, don't see why they should either.

Now, you may say I'm generalising unfairly here, but I'm yet to meet a single US citizen (and I've met truck loads), including my own relatives, who has had the courtesy to even try and pronounce a foreign name correctly (they must be out there somewhere). Reminds me of old fashioned Brits who think they still rule the world.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6946398&highlight=ahmadinejad#post6946398

What I quite don't get is why, in a place like the US built on immigration, foreign-sounding names get such a bad rap.
Take Ahmadinejad, for instance. How many times have we seen here on CFC "what's-his-name-jad" or other hilariously funny ways of pointing out the strangeness of his name?
Or #4 in this list:
http://www.campussqueeze.com/post/12...In-Sports.aspx

Dwayne Schintzius
When it comes to unpronouncible last names, Dwayne Schintzius takes the cake. No one knows how to pronounce that thing. But what's more important is that his head was always adorned with the road-kill type hair that put him on the map. Was he a good basketball player? Who knows.

Errr... dude, Schintzius is actually not that hard to pronounce.

Or take my last name. It's Dutch, and built on the Van + Name model (like Van Buren). And since I moved here, it seems my name is from Mars, and that no one has never heard of a last name with a space in it, ever. One example amongst many: I gave my freaking PASSPORT to the lady in charge of opening my account at the bank, and even though everything is ALSO in ENGLISH, and that there are SEPARATE fields for first and last names, my first name is now Julien Van. Siiigh.

So I would understand such attitudes from a country with a very low immigration, but from the US? Doesn't EVERYBODY has a foreign-sounding name?

EDIT: and then nobody finds anything wrong with the last name Willoughby.

 

[Ecofarm]

This attitude is in evidence yet further when we see citizens of the USA refer to, say, the president of Iran as "Ahmanutjob", "Ahma-din-Laden", "Ahmadinawhatevathefukyoucallhim" and "you-know-who-ejad".

And it's not confined to just world leaders who happen to be disliked. It generally applies to any name that sounds unusual. They simply can't be bothered and, worse, don't see why they should either.

Oh, it's not that I cannot be bothered. It's that I specifically want to be disrespectful to that piece of pig crap.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Die piece of swine dung mullahs too!

 

[scipian]

You'll always be yanks to me. Especially those from the south.

Er, yanks are northerners.

I don't post much here at all, and don't feel like getting into this stupid debate, but just figured I'd insert this comment. I mean, if anyone is a yank, it wouldn't be the southerners.

 

[holiday_hawk]

I've tried to avoid this thread best I can since this is no place for an arrogant "USian", but I do have an actually question, how is it pronounced? I've seen like Asian, someone this page posted like fusion without the f, and others, is it US-ian, or how? My opinion though, is how often do you refer to the people of the Americas that you need a word for them? The only things times i can think of to collectively say about Europeans is "Many European countries colonized other continents." and "Most Europeans are white.". Neither of those works for us and us Americans do nothing similar so there will be very very few times you do group all of us together. Lastly, it is not like we just took the name last week when there were many countries here, at the time i do believe(i may be wrong) we were the only independent country here.

 

[warpus]

I've just figured out the best solution to this annoying problem.

It's the Americas, right? That's what we call both continents, correct?

So let's call anyone from either continent an Americasan

 

[Ecofarm]

I've just figured out the best solution to this annoying problem.

It's the Americas, right? That's what we call both continents, correct?

So let's call anyone from either continent an Americasan

I got a solution. How about all the wannabe-fenchies in the north and injuns in the south kiss our ass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXk6pYkfknQ

How's that for nationalism. Now, can we get over the unfortunate term used to establish context within western hemispherical discussions?

 

[Kerozine]

North Americans and South Americans is a much more suitable, if not ideal term, wouldn't you say?

 

[warpus]

Americans collectively only have one ass?

 

[Ecofarm]

Americans collectively only have one ass?

Collectively, it is greater than all others. Smoochy smooch it, buddy. Don't be gentle now, get in there. That's right... central euros too. It's a big ass, there's plenty of room for everyone.

 

[sysyphus]

I'm an Euraustraliasian. You rang?

Seeing as you have a connection to this country as well, wouldnt' that make you Euraustralasadian?

Love your avatar BTW!

 

[Dachs]

Would 'USians' be pronounced to sound like 'fusions'?

The sad thing is, there's already a fictional continent whose inhabitants have a name pronounced the exact same way. So it's already taken, sorry.

 

[Ecofarm]

Would 'USians' be pronounced to sound like 'fusions'?

No. In conversations that may include various elements of the americas, "U-S-ians" with a rolling of the eyes for lack of a better descriptor is proper pronunciation.

 

[Gainy III]

Usians is simply analogy

 

[Fetus4188]

I just love how people argue that "American" is confusing. In the English language there is no confusing what "American" refers to. Anyone who thinks otherwise, so far as I can tell, just has some ridiculous spite towards the US. North American, South American, Latin American, etc all work when referring to the more general groupings. If you really need a term to group them all at once (and never in 20 years have I seen this) you can easily say North and South Americans. Bam, done. I'm sure it's used just as often as I refer to all the Eurasians.

 

[Bugfatty300]

In Mexico I was frequently called "Americano" among other things. Sometimes "Norte Americano" was used. No one got mad or tried to correct me when I called myself American. Different story in other Central American countries...

Those countries seem to be the only ones who care about US American vs Continental American. The rest of the world calls us American and that's good enough for me.