Other meaning for USA people
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Southern?
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What about Canada?
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In Italian we have an equivalent, Statunitensi, but Americani is probably used more often to mean the same thing
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thanks! missed that one.
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Or where they currently live.
Or, the case of NYC Puerto Ricans, both (New Yorican lol)
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I wish Oregonians were called Oregonos instead because sounding like a spice is cool. lol
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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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Southerners are the same way. Nobody calls us yanks as a compliment
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Apologies if this is an ignorant question but, if Canadian = Candiense and English = Ingles, why wouldn’t American = Americano?
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Just say "idiots." Source: USA citizen.
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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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No no, he has a point...
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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.
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Texan here. Yankee is definitely not a neutral word to refer to everyone from the USA. Some people down here will fight you over it, but most would just give you a confused look.
I've always understood gringo to mean white person, especially one who can't speak Spanish. The term is sometimes used in Mexican restaurants to let the staff know that you can't deal with too many jalapeños.
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Do you not have a term in Spanish?
If y'all use yank, yankee, or gringo, they're all fine.
But, American is fine too. If you're using English, everyone will know what you mean. It isn't like it hasn't been the term used in English for at least a century.
Here the thing. If you're referring to someone from one of the two/three americas, you specify north, central and south. That depends a little on whether you consider all three as discrete areas, or not, but that's the norm in English.
If you want to refer to all people from the americas at once, Americans is also fine. Context will carry which way you're using it. English is fairly easy to make contextual indicators like that.
An example: "oh, Americans love their flag". Which americans are we talking about? The ones with a specific American flag. Which, the statement isn't universally true, it's just an example.
If you aren't using English, it doesn't matter at all, use whatever terminology is the norm in that language.
The reason it doesn't matter is that there really isn't an "American" people in the continental sense. The cultures of the continents don't even have a unifying effect, though you do have some connection between Spanish speaking vs Portuguese, vs native, vs English, etc. The language links in South America are much more significant than the fact that they live on the same continent.
Any time you'd be referring to the entire Americas, or the peoples of them, you'd specify that because there's not a single American continent.
One nation out of all of them being america really isn't a difficulty in conversation. It's a non issue.
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I suppose it depends on context, but someone who was born in PR, but lives in NYC, is a Puerto Rican. Someone born in NYC to a Puerto Rican family is a New Yorican. Both people are ethnically Puerto Rican, but only one is from Puerto Rico.
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Oregonos sounds like part of a complete breakfast.
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Oregano-s and Oregon-O’s. I like it.
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Do Southerners use Yankee pejoratively to refer to northerners?
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I'm afraid so. There are a lot of people still fighting our Civil War, the one that supposedly ended over 150 years ago. Even without those troglodytes, there is a distinct cultural difference between the North and South, as I think there is in many countries. We tend to rub each other the wrong way sometimes.
Old joke about the difference. Walk up to a Southerner's house, and they say, "can I help you?" Walk up to a Yankee's house, and it's, "whaddya want?"
