Other meaning for USA people
-
Australian rhyming slang in this case, but yeah, it functions in much the same way as Cockney.
-
Yeah, that was another one of the theories. Linguists seem pretty sure it has something to do with Dutch, but are in disagreement over exactly how it came to be. (The "Janneke" example I gave above being, according to what I read, a diminutive form of Jan.)
-
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.
-
Gringo and yankee are both fine. However, it's most correct to refer to people from the USA by their birth state.
-
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.
-
That sounds like the name of a person from Docklands in Melbourne.
-
i believe Brits call Americans "yanks"
-
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.
-
Usonian also works.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Southern?
-
What about Canada?
-
In Italian we have an equivalent, Statunitensi, but Americani is probably used more often to mean the same thing
-
thanks! missed that one.
-
Or where they currently live.
Or, the case of NYC Puerto Ricans, both (New Yorican lol)
-
I wish Oregonians were called Oregonos instead because sounding like a spice is cool. lol
-
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.
-
Southerners are the same way. Nobody calls us yanks as a compliment
-
Apologies if this is an ignorant question but, if Canadian = Candiense and English = Ingles, why wouldn’t American = Americano?
