Basically just something people say that indicates a position indirectly, like how seperatists from a given region might always say they’re from [region] and not [country] or how trump supporters call AI “SI” now.
Basically just something people say that indicates a position indirectly, like how seperatists from a given region might always say they’re from [region] and not [country] or how trump supporters call AI “SI” now.
My favorite example is how francophone leftists or those who dislike america will call americans “USians”. (Américain -> États-Unien)
I’m Canadian, but so often “American” is considered from the USA. I’m not a huge fan of that. So I’ll usually use North America personally.
Ehhhh I’m an anglophone USian, and use “USian”. Am leftist though so maybe you’re onto something lol
I’ve never heard someone say that irl, although I have seen it on lemmy, but I’ve heard tons of people say the french equivalent irl, which is why I said it was francophones. It is based to say it in english though.
I don’t know French very well, but it seems like it works better, grammatically speaking, in French than in English.
Yes 100%, it’s incredibly clunky in english but in french it’s just as nice to say as the “American”
I usually call them the Cheeseburger people from Burgerstan
At least that’s funny
what a strange assumption to make.
Well, those were the stated reasons of everyone I asked.
wait, literally? you asked “why do you say ‘usian’” and they’ve responded “je hateux vouz guys”? i’ve always used terms like that because “american” seems too broad. i use “north/central/south” american" when referring to larger divisions, and us american when talking about the country specifically.
Well, not like “I hate Americans” but moreso like “I dislike the country that is the US, I dislike it’s influence and how it uses it’s power”. I am a francophone, and it’s why I use the term, the one time I was in the US the people seemed very nice.
“I dislike the government therefore I will be disrespectful to the people by refusing to use their preferred demonym.” Alright bud.
It’s in french. You don’t have a preferred demonym in french. It’s like how the Dutch call themselves Netherlanders, but very few people say that. (Or how in french they’re called Hollandais)
Also how is it disrespectful???
No, it’s a rarely spoken language here (though Américain is still more common than États-unien). But “American” is the preferred term when speaking English. Like how in English they’re “the Dutch” but in Dutch the people are Nederlanders.
How is it not? It’s a signal that the speaker is openly hostile, or indifferent at best, to the culture. We don’t want to be called that. It’s also not any less vague, despite the common justification of “America is the whole continent”. For one, there’s more than one “United States” (we are right next to the United Mexican States). For another, there’s rarely a reason to refer to the entire landmass because the only shared trait between us is that we weren’t “discovered” until Europeans came across the Atlantic. In American English we treat North and South America as separate continents. I know they’re often referred to as one in Latinate languages, but to us it’s about as useful as “Afro-Eurasia”.