Other meaning for USA people
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From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term "yankee" or "gringo" rather than "american" cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
This probably isn’t helpful for referring to all Americans but in the U.S., we use whatever state/regjon within the United States a person is from as the demonym. So, someone from California would be Californian, someone from Texas would be Texan. For a regional example, someone from the Northeast would be a New Englander.
For most of the history of the Republic, the states viewed themselves sort of like EU countries do now: independent states in America that united. It probably wasn’t until the World Wars that it changed.
It can get more complicated, unfortunately. Native Americans would probably use their tribal name instead of the state, for instance. But that’s why we don’t have a demonym and everyone has resorted to USian or USAian on message boards.
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Marvelstani
That sounds like the name of a person from Docklands in Melbourne.
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Being from the USA, I can confidently say “Yankee” is a term that is fairly neutral in meaning. People from the South states use it to refer to basically any American not from the South, and I get the sense people from the UK use it to refer to anyone from the USA.
In my experience, “Gringo” seems to be a term used by Spanish-speakers (even ones from North and South America) to refer to English speakers who think they’re better than everyone, so it appears to be a term with negative connotations
i believe Brits call Americans "yanks"
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From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term "yankee" or "gringo" rather than "american" cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
imo, 'gringo' has no special meaning unless it was given one from a local group. like how "let's go brandon" only makes sense on a specific group.
'yankee' used to have a specific one before, i.e. southern US bros, but it got saturated and now could be used generally. imo, 'yankee' usage has ye olde vibe to it, but maybe that's just me.
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From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term "yankee" or "gringo" rather than "american" cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
Usonian also works.
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From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term "yankee" or "gringo" rather than "american" cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
If I want to come off as a pseudo-intellectual I call them Dixie for east-north and Yankee for south-west (but also Florida and the bible belt) and gringo for hispanic Americans. I don't know if any of those terms are really correct to use in that context and my definitions are entirely vibes-based.
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Being from the USA, I can confidently say “Yankee” is a term that is fairly neutral in meaning. People from the South states use it to refer to basically any American not from the South, and I get the sense people from the UK use it to refer to anyone from the USA.
In my experience, “Gringo” seems to be a term used by Spanish-speakers (even ones from North and South America) to refer to English speakers who think they’re better than everyone, so it appears to be a term with negative connotations
In my experience (as a Brit), people generally only refer to Americans as Yanks in a mildly pejorative way or if we're taking the piss, otherwise it's Americans.
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imo, 'gringo' has no special meaning unless it was given one from a local group. like how "let's go brandon" only makes sense on a specific group.
'yankee' used to have a specific one before, i.e. southern US bros, but it got saturated and now could be used generally. imo, 'yankee' usage has ye olde vibe to it, but maybe that's just me.
Southern?
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The reason for this is simple: the word in English is "American". Because in English speaking countries, it is almost universally the case that we talk about the 7 continents. And in the rare case we talk about 6 continents, it's from merging Europe and Asia (which, frankly, is blatantly a far superior model of the continents), not merging North America and South America.
So "America" unambiguously refers to the country, and there's no need for estadounidense, any more than there's a need for "commonwealthian" for someone from the Commonwealth of Australia.
What about Canada?
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It's a weird lacuna of the English language, there's no official word for estadounidense.
In Italian we have an equivalent, Statunitensi, but Americani is probably used more often to mean the same thing
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Southern?
thanks! missed that one.
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Gringo and yankee are both fine. However, it's most correct to refer to people from the USA by their birth state.
Or where they currently live.
Or, the case of NYC Puerto Ricans, both (New Yorican lol)
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This probably isn’t helpful for referring to all Americans but in the U.S., we use whatever state/regjon within the United States a person is from as the demonym. So, someone from California would be Californian, someone from Texas would be Texan. For a regional example, someone from the Northeast would be a New Englander.
For most of the history of the Republic, the states viewed themselves sort of like EU countries do now: independent states in America that united. It probably wasn’t until the World Wars that it changed.
It can get more complicated, unfortunately. Native Americans would probably use their tribal name instead of the state, for instance. But that’s why we don’t have a demonym and everyone has resorted to USian or USAian on message boards.
I wish Oregonians were called Oregonos instead because sounding like a spice is cool. lol
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Unfortunately the USAians are so dominant in the region of the Americas that they've coopted the term American for most people. My Columbian friend hates when we refer to USAians as Americans because he says "hey we were here first"
. But unfortunately that's the way it is.Yanks or Yankee Doodles is what we used to call them but they get rather upset these days when you call them that. I wouldn't call them gringos because it just sounds unnatural for a Brit to say that seriously.
I like to look at it this way. The full name of Mexico is the United States of Mexico. But we still call them Mexicans.
It’s totally okay to call people from the United States of America as Americans. Everyone knows what you mean anyways.
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In my experience (as a Brit), people generally only refer to Americans as Yanks in a mildly pejorative way or if we're taking the piss, otherwise it's Americans.
Southerners are the same way. Nobody calls us yanks as a compliment
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Hispanic here, I grew up using “gringo” specifically for people from the U.S. despite skin tone.
Canadians are “Canadiense”, English are “Ingles” but United States? “Estaso Unidente”? It’s sort of like saying “United Statian” but arguably more “correct/proper”
Gringo is just much faster/easier to say.
That being said this can vary a little from one Latin-American country to another.
Apologies if this is an ignorant question but, if Canadian = Candiense and English = Ingles, why wouldn’t American = Americano?
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From Spain here, when we want to speak about USA people we use the term "yankee" or "gringo" rather than "american" cause our americans arent from USA, that terms are correct or mean other things?
Just say "idiots." Source: USA citizen.
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What about Canada?
I think the point the previous user is getting at is that there is no "America" the continent in most English-speaking countries—there is North America and South America.
Canada is in North America but it's not in "America," which without the North/South prefix, will make most English-speaking people assume you mean the US and not the continent Canada and the US are on.
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Just say "idiots." Source: USA citizen.
No no, he has a point...
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If I want to come off as a pseudo-intellectual I call them Dixie for east-north and Yankee for south-west (but also Florida and the bible belt) and gringo for hispanic Americans. I don't know if any of those terms are really correct to use in that context and my definitions are entirely vibes-based.
I'd say leave east/west out of the Yankee/Dixie dichotomy you're imagining, because every single southeastern state was a slave state that supported the confederacy.
It also falls apart when you go west of the Mississippi River, which was (outside of Texas and California) mostly unincorporated territory during the time of the civil war and not a part of what would have been considered the union or the confederacy at that time.
Also don't refer to Hispanic Americans as "gringo" because that is a term used in Latin America to refer to people who are not Latin American.
