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I had someone in Europe tell me once that they find the whole constant "excuse me" and "sorry" thing to be an American habit that they find annoying. It surprised me because I've always viewed that as just basic polite manners but I guess it wasn't part of how people in his country interact (forget which country it was) and it bugged him.
I find it very odd that we are the only residents of the country that defines our national identity by the continent we live on, meanwhile we exclude others from that same rule. Meaning, we call ourselves Americans and some make statements like "America is for Americans," which usually means that everyone from South America, Mexico and Canada are excluded. Or use phrases such as "American Citizen." Meanwhile you'll never hear a Canadian or a Mexican identify themselves as American. We sort of claim that the continent is our nationality, and don't allow anyone who resides on the Continent to claim the same.
Last time I checked we owned the continent. WOOHOO!
Just admit you're a Canadian who wanted to rant on Americans. It's quite clear by how this thread has progressed.
Why a Canadian specifically? Is it because of my friendliness, jolly sensibility and an overall sunny outlook on this forum? Yeah, I guess anyone can make that mistake of associating me with a Canadian.
OP, what should people of the United States of America call themselves???
Well, if I had my way... I think we should call ourselves Usayans, has a very sci-fi or Roman ring to it. I like it. All of you are missing the point, it's not that we should stop calling ourselves American, but that we shouldn't deny others from having the right to define themselves as Americans as well. Just like someone from Malta can call herself a European, or someone from Nepal can call himself Asian. Saying that someone from Mexico is not an "American citizen" is definitely an idiosyncrasy, but it has been accepted as the norm, which reflects our perpetual state of megalomania.
On the other hand, I don't think that the residents of other countries on the American continent have any desire of claiming that they are American, simply because we have quite a crappy international reputation.
It is arrogant if you don'tapply thesame concept to other nations that live on the same continent. It just doesn't make sense.
Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos. They call themselves Mexicans and refer to the country as Mexico. The same logic should apply to the United States of America and Americans. Unfortunately for America, they share the name with the continent, however, the use of America and American is consistent for other countries.
U.S.A are initials, that is not our country's name, it's an abbreviation. People from the U.S.S.R did not call themselves USSRans. We are The United States of America so instead of calling ourselves United States of American, we shortened it to American. Just like people from Great Britain call themselves British and not Great British.
Also, if we "shouldn't deny others from having the right to define themselves as Americans as well" how would we distinguish a person from the United States versus another country who is also using the name? We would obviously have to stop calling ourselves American and use another word to distinguish ourselves- I guess this is where Usayans comes into play, right?
Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos. They call themselves Mexicans and refer to the country as Mexico. The same logic should apply to the United States of America and Americans. Unfortunately for America, they share the name with the continent, however, the use of America and American is consistent for other countries.
Ok, logical, but Mexico is not a continent.
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