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davidw

"US Americans" ?!

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Sure, as opposed to Central Americans, South Americans, Mexicans, or Canadians.

There is no estadounidenses in English but "Americans" logically includes Alaskans through Argentinians.

Reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

I suppose it's technically correct, but it doesn't sound good at all. Especially since they already just used 'Americans' in the title. "People of the United States" or something like that also reads better.

Sure, citizens of other countries in the Americas could also be called Americans, but in reality, if you're trying to actually communicate clearly with other people, rather than score political correctness points, you would not use that term for, say, a Canadian or a Brazilian, because there are already perfectly good, more specific terms for citizens of said countries.

Likewise, if you were really trying to talk about the commonalities of everyone from Alaskans to Argentinians you'd presumably use something like "peoples of the Americas".

"Americans" is more idiomatic.

But - I bet NYU has_many Chilean, Canadian, Costa Rican grad students who would be annoyed at the implicit exclusion.

But the thing is titled "Getting to Know Americans", so why bother with an ugly sounding turn of words when you've already crossed that bridge?

I didn't think that "US Americans" was even correct when I posted - it doesn't sound at all right to my ears.

> Chilean, Canadian, Costa Rican grad students who would be annoyed at the implicit exclusion.

Only the ones with a chip on their shoulder.

I was about to lament that English lacks a short, euphonic, idiomatic word for "US-icans" / US citizens & residents / culturally US people / estadounidenses.

But then I remembered we do have such a word.

Yanks.

"Yank" doesn't really work either, sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee#In_other_English-speakin...

You'll just have to live with the fact that English doesn't have a convenient word.

Even here in Italy, "americano" is much more common than statunitense.

The proportion of "US Americans" who would self-describe as a "Yank" must be vanishingly small. I think the first rule about names is that the named person should recognize the results.

You would think so, but Christ never thought of himself as Christ; Hindu is a name made up by outsiders; and Germany sounds nothing like Deutschland.

Anyway I was just seeking compromise.

Nobody says yanks besides australians. And they don't really do it that much.

Aussies + Brits say it.

As it's a guide for international students at NYU, I think that's implied.

Yes, US Americans, as opposed to US Mexicans, or Canada Americans, Brasil Americans, or Columbia Americans.

See what I did there.

"What you did there", besides beat a dead meme-horse was invent words that no one actually uses, as far as I can tell.

> a dead meme-horse

It's reassuring to know that meme-horses can die. I was afraid we were stuck with them forever...

From my experience, there has never been any confusion about which country I am from when I tell a non US citizen that I am "American". I have also never, in actual conversation, heard somebody refer to the totality of western hemisphere landmasses as "America". It is always either North America or South America. The only exception I can think of in that regard is when discussing "The Americas" from the perspective of 15th and 16th century European exploration.

Colombia, not Columbia

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