Talk:Alternative words for American

message: I can understand the grief of citizens from other countries in the Americas when citizens of the United States hog the term 'American'.  Really, it is not that hard to say 'I'm from the US'  since people generally ask 'Where are you from' and not 'What are you?' 
My suggestion: if someone persists on saying 'American', insist on asking 'in/from which country.' They will only change the word when it ceases to be convenient. 
Or if your language has an alternative, use it. For example, Spanish has an alternative 'Estadounidense' which is little used. Given a choice, it is much preferable to 'Gringo' which someone has suggested. Gringo is imprecise and insulting to many, and the issue is not to use labels which could insult other people, even if your intentions are benign.  
Which is how everyone should look at it. People calling themselves 'American' are not trying to be insulting or proprietory. They are just like anyone else in wanting to be called by the name they use to refer to themselves. Have a little sympathy: No one is demanding the Spanish to say 'I am a Loyal Subject of the Kingdom of Spain but Requesting an Independent Catalan State', for example. Are Venezuelans now Bolivarean Venezuelans? What would Mexican-Americans have to call themselves if they did not want to be confused with another group?
Finally, I bet there are many more grievous issues which could be taken up with the United States than this one. By the term United States I do not mean every single one of her citizens that you happen to meet.
Spanish also has the term norteamericano, but naturally that is noninclusive of Mexico, The Caribbean and Canada. I think context may be critical here, I find that within these communities it's rarely brought up. I.e. when bicultural people born in the US are speaking Spanish rarely does someone highlight the exclusive nature of the word American. It is often implied by their familiarity with Latino culture that they may be aware of critical postcolonial perspectives. I think although unwieldy compared to 'American' more precise terminology may be best for a consensus driven platform like Wikipedia. This is not a conversation between two individuals but rather a platform where we want to be inclusive. I would suggest that we include one sentence in the first paragraph that describes this. Something to the effect of "Many persons view the use of the term American to mean Citizen of the United States to be Amerocentric or Eurocentric.--Paolorausch (talk) 04:00, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage advice from [[User:65.196.41.130]] 

message: ("Usono" came _from_ Esperanto; it did not "make its way into" Esperanto. It is older than Frank Lloyd Wright's books.)
:Is there data available about the etymologies of and first citations for both "Usono" and "Usonian"? Are they clearly related, or independent coinings? --Brion 06:52 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)
::I've removed it, after creating Usonia. I've read Wright's work and I tend to doubt that etymology (if you've ever tried to read any of his stuff, you'd know what I mean). If it is indeed true, there must be a source for it, but for the time being I tend to think this etymology is an assumption by an esperantist . -- Decumanus | Talk 07:22, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I found an esperanto society page that suggests it was first used by Samuel Butler, the author of the utopian novel Erewhon. I'm going to go with that pending something more authoritative. -- Decumanus | Talk 08:02, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: The Esperanto term for the United States of America is Usono.  This comes from the English abbreviation U.S., which in Esperanto is pronounced OO-soh.  Uso in the accusative case is uson.  Thus the name for the United States in Esperanto is Usono.  In Esperanto, one forms the name of a citizen of the United States using the suffix "an" which means "member of." Therefore a citizen of the United States is Usonano.  Esperanto terms for the American geographic regions and people living of them are Ameriko/Amerikano, Norda Ameriko/Nordamerikano, Meza Ameriko/Mezamerikano, and Suda Ameriko/Sudamerikano.
The stuff about embedding the accusative ending onto a hypothetical form *uso is just silly.  Also, there is no evidence that the Esperanto term came directly from an acronym.  Such an acronymic name, if it existed, would be *Uŝao or *Uŝnao (if from Esperanto words; "ŝtato", state) or *Usao.  It's generally thought to be derived from the the Wright/(Butler?) term "Usonia." --Jim Henry 20:01, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usonian/Usonia/Usono 

message: What would estadounidense in Latin? Maybe the Latin equivalent of estadounidense should be adopted as the neutral, "non-Monroe doctrinistic" term for Americans
: The Monroe Doctrine stuff is a not very subtle POV rant, most of these words were proposed for other reasons, mostly simple pedantry, not political protest about American foreign policy.  The use of "American" predates the Monroe Doctrine and the US as a global power.  Daniel Quinlan 04:42, Aug 16, 2003 (UTC)
:According to my Latin dict, USA is Civitates Americae Septemtrionalis Foederatae. Now give me the adjective -- Error 05:10, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: In my experience, usually Americanus.  Latin demonyms are generally directly after the country, and this country had the poor foresight to name itself after its continent.  ("United States" is no country name any more than it is for the United States of Mexico.)  That said, I have seen "Statunitensis", but not often.  —Muke Tever 03:40, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  estadounidense? 

message: True or false: Wikipedia can also have a list of alternate words for American as a noun meaning "a citizen of the United States". 66.245.89.130 01:27, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  True or false?? 

message: I just want to point out that the term gringo - is used as a racist slang and is similar to a white person saying spic.  This is from the Websters dictionary - "In Latin America the word gringo is an offensive term for a foreigner, particularly an American or English person."  I can go in and edit it.  By the way - I'm AMERICAN.  This argument I have uncovered regarding what we should be called has seriously pissed me off.  Europe and the world had no trouble distinguishing us from Canadians during WWII.  There we were known as AMERICAN soldiers.  By the way - I don't think that when immigrants came over to Ellis Island looking for the AMERICAN dream - they went to Colombia. --JerseyDevil 10:03, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In the US, most Latinos and Chicanos would be offended if they were called "José" all the time (or worse, if there are two of them, for one to be called "José" and the other "Hose B"). It shows a lack of respect not to bother to learn someone's name. There are lots of "friendly" terms for foreigners that aren't explicitly racist, but wear thin after a while. "Gaijin" isn't so bad in Japan, only because the Japanese are generally so polite (Gaijin-san: "Mr Gaijin") and would be reluctant to accost you to ask your name without being properly introduced. And in parts of New Guinea it's considered rude to use someone's real name, so you even address your friends are "you in the corner" etc. In such a situation, calling someone Whitey can hardly be taken as offensive. But in West Africa there are various local words for Whitey (Yovo, Anasara, Tubab, etc.) that aren't racist but really get on people's nerves when they're used quite literally a thousand times a day — especially if you're Black and have darker skin than the Africans calling you "Whitey"! (Most West Africans will tell you the terms are harmless, until they accompany you for a day and realize how annoying it is.) But most white Americans are completely ignorant as to what racism is, not having ever experienced it themselves, and so tend to label anything racially based they find annoying as 'racism', and to equate e.g. "gringo" with "spic". But that's when someone addresses you as "gringo". I find it hard to see how it would be offensive for someone to talk about "what the gringos are up to" if there were no malice in their voice. kwami 04:53, 2005 July 28 (UTC)
As for being pissd off by finding this article, Im sorry for you, because Im very glad (and I believe most of other latinoamericanos are as well, to see that such a page exists, displaying correctly the view of the non-US people on this matter.
And by the last part of your comment, I take it that you didnt understand the article. Its widely accepted by the world today that when a citzien of the US ("american" to you) uses the term "american" he is reffering to members of his nation. However, in most other languages of the world, theres an specific term to call the citizens of US that is different to "american", because this adjective is used to refer to people who have been born in the continent of America, such as myself.LtDoc 03:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Sorry to join in, but here in mexico that's a ver y common way, not used in a racist intention but just informally.  Just to inform you of another opinion. Besides, Wikipedia is not a 1% pollitically correct place, see Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer and if this entry discusses alternate words, then it's a proper place for gringo to be in. drini ☎ 03:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Racist Term 

message: hope i'll be clear enough not to be misunderstood, since english is not my mother tongue
but to me, america means the continent, and saying united states you only mean a federation of states, as e.g. brazil or mexico are, always in the american continent.
reading the name in this way, talking about the united states of america is not one way road, and can generate incomprehensions
when you come to think about it, sounds as "the nation with capital washington d.c." is a nation without a clear name, but this doesn't mean i'm calling the inhabitant in any other way than "americans", also if ethimologically doesn't seem to be (the most) correct (name you can use)
as in the title, only my opinion))))
have a nice day,--joana 00:01, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  my opinion 

message: While I can`t speak for its use in france, articles that I have seen it used in in Québec were not as a whole meant as derogative. Usualy it was used in conjunction with "Les Amériques", [the americas] (plural) to refer to the whole of the continent (north, central and south) thus avoiding any ambiguity but not using the word américain [american] at all.
In the same vein, the adjective is often simply replaced by "des états-unis" (i.e. "un char des états-unis", an american car) which again avoid confusion with localy made (in a canadian plant) vs foreign made car (european, japanese, etc...). 
A good example of this is its use by Radio-Canada, the state sponsored french language broadcasting society.
For these reasons, I will slightly tweak the wording use.--Marc pasquin 17:25, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Étatsuniens