Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (categories)/Usage of American/Archive 1

message: I suggest we limit this discussion to the topic of how to name "nationality x" categories pertaining to the United States assuming such categories will exist.  I believe there are at least the following options:
# use "American x"
# use "United States x" (or "US x" or "U.S. x")
# use "x of/in/by/from the United States" even in categories whose other members are "fooish x"
-- Rick Block (talk) 03:04, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This appears to be a discussion to gather arguments relevant to the nationality category names.  Thus all we who don't have new arguments to add are just nodding when we see our comments already having been expressed.  (SEWilco 23:41, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Why not use the formal country name? 13:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  topic for discussion 

message: I think that when one is talking about a culture, "American " is the proper term, but for geography it clearly should have the "United States" in there somewhere. Examples: American writers, Mountain ranges of the United States. The United States is a country, and so when talking about geography and borders, it simply makes sense, but the term "of the United States" doesn't imply the culture that may people from the United States think of as "American." --Jacqui ★ 22:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Jacqui's suggestion. Andrew Levine 23:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) for the types of categories this discussion actually pertains to - it only applies where Nationality X is the standard. X of country is already the standard for geography. The question under discussion might be phrased as We currently refer to French writers, Spanish literature and Japanese environmental organisations. When naming categories should we refer to American writers, American literature, and American artists; or should we refer to United States writers, United States literature, and United States environmental organisations; or should we refer to writers from the United States, literature of the United States, and environmental organisations from the United States; or should we not have a policy on how to name categories when they refer to writers, literature and environmental organisations of the USA? (Of course, it affects more than these three category types, but they are typical of the different kinds of category). Valiantis 13:12, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuances of American X 

message: See below. In particular, judicial texts do not use this because it is technically incorrect. The fact that many people use it anyway does not make them right - see appeal to the majority. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should strive towards correctness. Radiant_>|< 22:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Judicial texts, in the form of Supreme Court opinions, which, speaking as a British citizen, I believe are highly regarded as judiciary texts, do use American.    Hiding  talk 10:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is US usage. Even if the majority of contributors are from the US, en.wikipedia is English language wikipedia. Pilatus 02:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: American as an adjective meaning of the United States is not "American usage" it is English usage. To say otherwise implies that in British English or Indian English or any other dialect of English, people would not naturally write "American film", "American music" etc. but would regard it as a strange Americanism. As a Briton, please be assured that I regularly use American to mean of the United States as do all the other Britons I know. Valiantis 12:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments against "American x"

message: === Arguments for "United States x"===
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That means that is should enforce correctness over popular usage. For instance, Napoleon I of France is more commonly known as simply Napoleon, and 9/11 is a colloquial shorthand for the September 11, 2001 attacks - but the Wikipedia articles on both use their formally correct names, rather than the commonly used ones. The same principle should apply here. There are two continents known as "North America" and "South America", and one country that is named the "United States of America". Just because many people generally use a different name does not make them right - in particular, judicial texts do not use the word "American" to refer to the country. Most of the arguments above constitute an appeal to the majority logical fallacy. Radiant_>|< 22:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Judicial texts do use the term American, see my rebuttal above. If we are to enforce correctness, as you suggest, I think the Legislature and Judicial Opinion of the United States of America is the best place to discover the formal term.  Since they utilise the term American in reference to their citizens, I suggest it is some form of bias not to use it. Just because many people oppose the term, it does not make them right. Hiding  talk 10:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When the Supreme Court refers to "American Courts" it's obvious from the context that the judges won't discuss courts on the American continent.  Pilatus 02:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm a U.S. citizen, a native speaker of English, and a bit on the pedantic side, but I am not at all annoyed by the use of "United States" as an adjective. It does occur in many contexts. I've even heard "United States culture" to use the specific example you gave. And, of course, we have "United States Congress", "United States passport" (that's what it says on mine), and so forth. Jonathunder 16:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "United States x"

message: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That means that is should enforce correctness over popular usage. For instance, Napoleon I of France is more commonly known as simply Napoleon, and 9/11 is a colloquial shorthand for the September 11, 2001 attacks - but the Wikipedia articles on both use their formally correct names, rather than the commonly used ones. The same principle should apply here. There are two continents known as "North America" and "South America", and one country that is named the "United States of America". Just because many people generally use a different name does not make them right - in particular, judicial texts do not use the word "American" to refer to the country. Most of the arguments above constitute an appeal to the majority logical fallacy. Radiant_>|< 22:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Judicial texts do use the term American, see my rebuttal above. If we are to enforce correctness, as you suggest, I think the Legislature and Judicial Opinion of the United States of America is the best place to discover the formal term.  Since they utilise the term American in reference to their citizens, I suggest it is some form of bias not to use it. Just because many people oppose the term, it does not make them right. Hiding  talk 10:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When the Supreme Court refers to "American Courts" it's obvious from the context that the judges won't discuss courts on the American continent.  Pilatus 02:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments for "United States x"

message: * Inconsistent with other countries' categories, in which the national adjective (Canadian, British, Mexican, Spanish, etc.) is required when this format is used.
* It isn't normal everyday usage.
* As far as I can tell, this whole issue was invented to find a way to annoy Americans.  When the people of one piece of the Former Yugoslavia decided to call their new nation Macadonia a large chuck of the Greek population had a hissy fit.  "On no: they cried, 'that's a Greek name . . . .etc . . .etc . . .  etc"  And the Greeks lost.  The reality is that folks get to decide for themselves what they are called.  Other wise you risk allowing Americans, for example, to decide what everyone else in the world is called.  We probably do have the votes.  Carptrash 19:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a U.S. citizen, a native speaker of English, and a bit on the pedantic side, but I am not at all annoyed by the use of "United States" as an adjective. It does occur in many contexts. I've even heard "United States culture" to use the specific example you gave. And, of course, we have "United States Congress", "United States passport" (that's what it says on mine), and so forth. Jonathunder 16:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments against "United States x"

message: *It's parallel to how we handle most categories for most countries, e.g. :Category:Geography of France, :Category:Politics of Spain. However, this is less the case in cultural categories (e.g. :Category:Spanish literature, :Category:Romanian culture). -- Jmabel | Talk 05:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments for "x of/in/by/from the United States"

message: *It's unnecesssary long and clumsy. Piccadilly 14:04, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguments against "x of/in/by/from the United States"

message: While it's useful to have a summary including all pro- and con-arguments on this page, it does not ultimately accomplish anything. I believe the current comments are a bit one-sided because this page hasn't been advertised much. Basically, we can do two things with this issue.
One. We can invoke the standard Wikipolicy on such controversial style issues as British-vs-American-English, or AD/BC vs CE/BCE. Which is to say, we assert that both stances are POV, take no further action, and explicitly forbid any effort to change pages from one style to another, keeping them all in the style they were originally written in.
Or two. We finish off this debate and summarize it into a neat bullet list of points that showcases both sides fairly (and doesn't have signatures or comments like "I agree with the above"), and then advertise a wikiwide poll on the issue. I believe the easiest way to do this would be to hold a simple majority vote with four options: 1) "American", 2) "United States", 3) "Do not standardize", and 4) "don't care either way as long as it's consistent". When the vote closes, all votes in category #4 would be added to #1 or #2, whichever is largest. Hope that made sense :)
Radiant_>|< 22:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm disturbed by the idea that any votes for consistency get added to the larger of the two options, as this could lead to a theoretical situation where a one vote victory ensues.  I think people who endorse a standard should be expected to endorse a given standard, otherwise I'm not sure how they can truly endors a standard.  I also feel we should not discount the third option x of/in/by/from the United States, which matches other problematic nations, e.g. :Category:Musicians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  I'm also not sure that a vote is entirely neccessary, consensus can be just as easily achieved through discussion.  Like The Tom, I would like to wait and see more opinion. Hiding  talk 10:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where do we go from here 

message: I object to the proposed form of the vote, a majority vote with 4 candidates.  That is how "Americans" got their current "President".  Suggestion one could be worse than suggestion any of suggestions 2, 3, or 4, but we could get 20 percent voting for 2, 30 percent for 3, and 10 percent for 4, and 40 percent for number one, even though 60 percent would prefer anything but suggestion one.  I suggest we use an actually consensus process rather than a vote.  Let's discuss this until a clear preference is arrived at. Let's also actively solicit opinions from those outside the North American continent.  This is an important issue, right?  Let's not go off half-cocked and decide it hastily. Pedant 17:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Objections

message: We've argued about this practically since the first article was created.  We've been round and round on the same arguments and never reached consensus.  I don't see any chance that we're going to reach consensus this time either.  The arguments always boil down to:
"American"	"US"
* "American" is the colloquial usage.  Some people are emotionally attached to that usage.  
* There is no commonly accepted adjectival form of US.	
* "American" is inherently ambiguous.  At least a few people are occasionally confused and do not immediately know which sense is intended.
* The form "a US author" is grammatically acceptable.
I have argued before that our mission as an encyclopedia compels us to strive for precision in thought and language.  Even if only one person in a thousand will be confused, we should attempt to be as clear as possible.  America refers to a geography, some senses of which are not contiguous with the nationality.  Personally, I find nothing frustrating or pejorative about being called a US <insert noun here>.  However, the bottom line is that Wikipedia is inconsistent.  Fix the ones you see and don't get into edit wars over it either way.  Rossami (talk) 03:43, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They could easily be 'American fauna', 'American history', 'American geography', could all be either continental or country specifc. Better to say as precisely as possible what you mean. Trollderella 03:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe I have already addressed this point above. When writing about the continents of North and South America then the forms North American X and South American X make it clear what is being referred to. In the fairly rare occurrences when it is appropriate to have a category which refers to both diverse continents then the form X of the Americas is perfectly good English. More to the point, this discussion is about how we name categories that would be subcats of :Category:Categories by nationality (i.e. principally categories of people who are nationals of the USA and cultural items (music, literature etc) that come from the USA) or the small minority of subcats of :Category:Categories by country where it has been agreed that nationality X is the standard (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories)#Miscellaneous "nationality x"). The examples of 'American geography'. 'American history' etc. are therefore beside the point as where these pertain to the USA, they should be named "Geography of the United States", "History of the United States" etc. (By corollary, those that are continental should logically be named "Geography of North America" etc. but I don't believe there is actually a policy on this). Valiantis 12:37, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not again 

message: # The Tom 05:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  For "American x" 

message: #Users should appreciate that while for native English speakers it is usual to use "America" for the USA, combinations such as "Amerindian", "Latin American", "South American" and even "North American" merely confuse the issue. Although there are ther "United States" about, the USA is by far the best known. --MacRusgail 16:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  For "United States x" 

message: # «»Who?¿?meta 06:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  For "x of/in/by/from the United States" 

message: # Christopher Parham (talk) 17:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Angr, I don't think the proposal intends to change categories like United States Department of State. There was previously a discussion of the type of categories to be changed here. -- Kjkolb 01:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Do not standardise" 

message: I find arguments on both sides compelling.  Perhaps it is not a clear case of either or.  American implies people and things from the US wherever they may be, e.g. American Culture, American Musicians, etc... Of the U.S. implies they are uniquely from the U.S., e.g. Presidents of the United States.  Is it possible to say American  musicians (U.S.) whenever American is called for?  Perhaps there is yet another way to use both terms that is consistant, and grammatically correct that hasn't been considered?  -- Samuel Wantman 04:20, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In cases where there is clear connection to the government of the United States (presidents, senators, etc.) I think "United States X" works.  In cases where there is no connection to the the US government, I think saying both American and US is confusing.  "American musicians (U.S.)" seems to imply a subset of "American musicians" (perhaps those currently living in the US?).  Looking at the straw poll, it doesn't seem likely to me that there will be a supermajority consensus.  I like the thought of looking for another approach to settle this.  Is there any reason "local usage" shouldn't be adhered to in this case?  I'm not sure I buy that most supporters of "American X" are from the US, but even if it were 100% of people from the US favor "American X" and 0% of non-US people favor this wouldn't we generally defer to local usage?  -- Rick Block (talk) 17:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, institutions of government and political office-holders already fall under the by-country rubric, not the by-nationality one (ie :Category:Federal political office-holders in the United States, :Category:Presidents of the United States).  Secondly, what sort of supermajority does precedent generally call for?  We're running, as of this writing, above 2/3rds for "American xxxx," but I think it's clear that an absolute consensus is not going to develop. -The Tom 17:47, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a compromise middle path? 

message: Is it at all possible to reach a consensus on this issue through discussion?  By that I mean, are people willing to change their views on anything?  Looking through the arguments expressed in support of the "United States", they mostly argue that "American" is ambiguous.  Given that the straw poll currently shows a majority for "American", are people prepared to forsake that view to reach consensus, i.e. could we agree that common usage might in this case trump any amiguity?  Do people agree that any ambiguity could be solved by placing a note on each category page, or that the category structure would  dispell any confusion, since we are categorising by nationality and not by continent? 
Is it worth bearing in mind that this page only seeks consensus on such usage in category names?  Therefore, how confusing is it going to be to see "American painters" at the bottom of Jackson Pollock, for example, given he is introduced as an "American" in the lead? Hiding  talk 17:57, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Thrash out the differences

message: *No correct term
*:There is no correct term to describe the nationality of the citizens of the USA.  Nobody has been able to cite a source to define this one way or the other.
*United States is ambiguous
*:Although arguably less so, the term United States is also ambiguous.
*American is common usage.
*:The term "American" is the most commonly used term to describe the nationality of a citizen of the United States of America in the English speaking world.
*Wikipedia is not wholly submissive to encyclopedic precision over common usage
*:Wikipedia:Naming conflict dictates:
*:Where self-identifying names are in use, they should be used within articles. Wikipedia does not take any position on whether a self-identifying entity has any right to use a name; this encyclopedia merely notes the fact that they do use that name.
*:Bear in mind that Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. We cannot declare what a name should be, only what it is.
Do people agree with the above points? Hiding  talk 10:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Points of agreement?

message: *Personally I have no desire to discuss this once more. I believe both sides have reasonable arguments, but consensus lies on the side of "American". In the spirit of progress and consistency, we should take that consensus and work with it. Radiant_>|< 11:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

message: Where does the use of terms like English American, British American, Anglo-Saxon American, European American, White American, etc. come in? There may be no such thing as an American nationality in the conventional meaning of the word but there is definitely an American nationality in the sense of citizenship in the country known as the United States of America. 
There is, however, another problem with the use of the word American to designate a nationality which has not been raised. There is an Anglo-Saxon American ethnicity which commonly and publicly goes under the name American. By doing so it claims the status of a nationality rather then being, technically, only a politically, culturally and linguistically dominant ethnicity within the United States. How do we ferret that usage out or do we? And if we don't are we not participants in a hoax? Dass 05:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean here... By There is an Anglo-Saxon American ethnicity which commonly and publicly goes under the name American do you mean white racist splinter groups?  Other than that, I've never heard anyone use American to mean Anglo-Saxon... I don't think anyone says "American" and expects to be understood to automatically mean "American of Anglo-Saxon ancestry" except perhaps for splinter white racists talking within their group... I guess if there was usage such as "Americans don't like spicy food or hip-hop music but they do like to attend their local Episcopal church", but does that sort of thing really come up anymore? Herostratus 09:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question