Wikipedia talk:Category names/Archive 1

message: <begin copy from Village Pump>
I just listed :Category:United States painters for merging/renaming to :Category:American painters on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion.  Currently, the subcategories of :Category:American people lack uniformity, with it split between "United States", "U.S.", and "American", though most use the latter.  I just wanted to make sure that this discussion got wider exposure, because based on past experience on the CfD page, I think the misplaced good intentions of a few have prevented a permanent and proper solution to the lack of category naming consistency.
The simple fact is that in all forms of English (not to mention through cognates in many other languages), "American" is the only term for referring to someone or something that is of the United States.  This is regardless of the fact that this linguistic appropriation of an adjective that may have otherwise belong to two continents may be politically incorrect.  The fact is that it's simply the way that it is.  That's the convention.
"United States painter" gets a paltry 603 google hits, most of which seem to be Wikipedia mirrors (alas, this awkward and obtuse phrase shows up in some article text).  There is obviously no such linguistic usage, nor should we invent one.  "United States" is not in any way an adjective.  Or look at it this way: would anyone, regardless of what part of the world you live in, expect someone to say "Hi, I'm a United States"?  or "Hi, I'm a U.S."?  when they introduce themselves?  Yeah, they could say "Hi, I'm from the U.S.", but if they want to use the simple noun form, or an adjective, no one would say anything but "I'm an American" or "I'm American."  Even though "U.S." may have some currency as an adjective, 1) it primarily refers to the government, 2) its usage is definitely minor compared to "American", and 3) it simply doesn't work for people ("No, I'm not Canadian, I'm U.S.")
I've never seen anyone who has disagreed that this convention is binding or pervasive actually offer any evidence supporting that "American" does not overwhelmingly and dominantly mean "of the United States", or that there are other comparatively prominent and correct alternatives.  Please let's fix this, or at least discuss it with relevance to our policies and actual terminology, not socio-political motivations.  Postdlf 16:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the intention of the prevailing phrasing is to give possession of the person to the country. We'd have to rename a vast quantity of categories if this were changed... -Splash 21:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The prevailing phrasing is actually "American ____": see the entries in :Category:American people by occupation, which mostly use that form.  Even were that not the case, the "prevailing phrasing" should be changed if it is incorrect (that's what bots are for, after all).  The actual (and proper) convention in category naming of people is to apply the adjective form of the nationality, because that's what the English language uses.  We don't have :Category:The Netherlands people or :Category:Union of Soviet Socialist Republics people, we have :Category:Dutch people and :Category:Soviet people.  The nonconformists in :Category:People by nationality are in the minority and should also be changed.  Postdlf 21:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: From Village Pump

message: :I seem to recall seeing a lot of discussion a few months back that proposed changing adjectival forms (e.g. Fooish Thingies) of category names to use genitive prepositional phrases (e.g. Thingies of Fooland).  My recollection is that that this had general support for two reasons: the correct adjectival form of a place is not always obvious; and adjectival forms for places tend to be vaguer and more ambiguous.  I can't find any proof of overarching consensus, and I certainly can't find it in Wikipedia:Naming conventions, but I did find some relevant discussion in Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion, Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 May 14, Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Political parties, and Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2005 June 12. This policy, if followed more widely, would bring us to "Painters of the United States" or "Painters of the United States of America" to avoid ambiguity. Bovlb 05:36:17, 2005-07-18 (UTC)
::That's one solution that is certainly preferable to ignoring a real convention in favor of a make-believe one, but it has a few drawbacks.  One, the natural tendency in English is to label people by the adjectival form, and so absent those few obscure countries that don't have well known or obvious naming conventions, the adjectival categories are going to be continually recreated by those who don't know about the change.  Two, your solution is the one that entails the most work at this point because it involves changing over nearly all of the people by nationality categories and subcategories.  Quite a lot of work even for a bot, and too much work compared to the insignificance of the problems.  Postdlf 05:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 18 July

message: Confused by the seperation of discussion so starting a reply in 20 July for uniformity.
I think we have to look at this more of an encyclopedic reference point of view and not a literal one (as in spoken word).  For a meager example, if you were to look in the Yellow Pages, for say "discount store", "super store", "general store", etc, whatever term you commonly refer to it as, you   may not find them as they have been put in pre-defined category chosen by the consensus or publisher, generally "department stores" We all have a common way that we say things, but they are often referenced by a very specific category. I may refer to it as a "super market" and would probably find it referenced under "grocery stores". The point is, although in every day literal sense we say American, but we being in the United States of America, understand it as just that. However, if I were to take a printed book to, say Canada, and reference anything other than them as American, although to me it may be understood, they are Americans as well, and are now being decluded just from my point of view of what American is. We far too often defer to commonly used slang words as accepted usage globally, what American in true context means is, United States American, to abbreviate it just for our sake of efficiency and comfort would not change the fact of what it really means, so why label it otherwise in any context?  To address some of the concerns of "Judges of the United States", we quite simply add "by state", however pointless it may seem, it solves the problem of defining the category as Federal judges.  I am not sure if we have moved on or began to address American ethnicities yet (African American, Chinese American, Italian Americans, etc.), so I will only put in the phrase "PC (politically correct)" to be used in further discussions, please ask me to comment when we move on to that topic.  ∞Who?¿? 04:28, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Actually no I wasn't statiing it unequivically, just as a reference to another continental American group.  Although we can cite resources on word usage, my main point is the actual country name is United States of America, so without any doubt, I could find listings for peoples, objects, etc... under this category, rather than wonder if the articles listed under American is North, South, Central, I just suggest we use the proper name and cut loose commonly used slang, which has come to be the norm. As for actual proof, the problem with media relating to titles, is most friendly govts and media outlets have referred to PC titles, as even used common literal terminology, so there isn't going to be much in finding someone actually using the full proper name, but it's still the proper name reguardless. Mainly for any reference sake, we use the full appropriate name of something, rather than a short or even commonly used one. ∞Who?¿? 05:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

text: *I agree that we coined the phrase, and I can not prove that I have personally witnessed the dislike of the usage from some peoples. Btw, I actually have Candadian friends that refer to them selves as American, and others that despise the title.  ∞Who?¿? 05:24, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  20 July 

message: As an American, I consider the name of my country to be America, not just The United States of America.  If my country is America, I therefore am an American.  It is pretty simple in that context, but there are many people, particularly those who live in other countries in both North and South America to resent this use of the term.  A similar issue comes up with the term "Colombia", but rarely do people object to the use of the word Colombian.  A term that is sometimes applied to citizens of the USA is USAian, which is a term I find particularly offensive and inappropriate.
I will be the first to admit that the use of the name America is in part a hold-over from the colonization of North America by England, and in part the "Manifest Destiny" attitude that prevailed in the 19th Century within the USA.  Still, by what other name would you call this country?  If there were a politcal revolution and a new communist government put in instead, it would be called the "People's Republic of America" or some other similar term.  Or try on "Kingdom of America" or "American Empire".  "Kingdom of the United States", I guess, could be somewhat reasonable, but not really correct in usage.
There are political reasons for using the term "United States", just as there is for "European Union".  Perhaps more so.  "United States" is in part a reference to the governments of America, and a political desire to encourage federal governments around the world.  In this sense the European Union and the United States are similar and equivalent sorts of polical organizations.  That historcally speaking the American states (like New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc.) did not last long as independent soverign nations may be true, but they were and the US government still has soverignty that is derived from the states, not the other way around.  In this sense I consider Texas to be equal with France or Israel, not an inferior subordinate political organization.  And yes Texas has its own military force and would likely be considered a nuclear power if it weren't for the fact that it is just one of several states in the USA.
I find that this whole discussion about trying to change the terms of categories from "American painters" to "Painters from the United States" to be more politically charged than trying to accomplish any useful task here on Wikipedia.  If this is politically charged and motivated, then please state your cause.  Also remember that while a large number of people may post on here with this discussion, it doesn't necessarily represent the "majority" opinion, even here on Wikipedia.  I wouldn't have even found this page if I hadn't found it on the Village Pump, and I hardly ever even read that.  I was trying to find discussion about some other point at the time.
Having lived for substantial amounts of time in a country outside of the USA (it was Brazil), I do appreciate the complaints to the use of the term American.  However, I find it slightly offensive to be called a "Norte Americano" (North American) as though Canada and Mexico don't count as countries either.  I am not here to change the world, however, but the usage of the term American in the English language certainly can and should refer to citizens of The United States of America.
In short, if I have to vote, I would say keep the term American as it stands currently, and it is the correct useage of the term, both from an official policy statement from the Government of the United States of America, and from common usage of its citizens.  This isn't the first time I've had to fight this idea, and I'm sure it won't be the last.  --Robert Horning 12:42, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The use of the terms "America" and "American" 

message: Maybe we can reach a compromise by using "<thing> of the United States" (or "... of the U.S.") - using this phrasing avoids the entire issue of whether or not it may be used as an adjective. Radiant_>|< 07:44, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
*Yes, this does seem like a good compromise way to go. Should we use "of" or "from"? Residence, or birth/citizenship? -Splash 14:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise with word order