Comment by fnordpiglet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fnordpiglet | Hacker News Reader

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Surely “American” is the most absurd. Literally no one is offended that people in the United States of America are referred to as American, even if there are 42 other countries in the Americas. The technical fact is it’s correct - anyone in the americas could be called an American correctly. But only one has “America” in the country name. But by including this it sparks a patriotic and nationalist response in most Americans and makes the whole “wokeism is against us” meme have teeth. It’s the political football that speaks to many people, especially immigrants who are proud to be called an American and not merely a U.S. citizen - which frankly has more nativist connotations and is used to separate natural born citizens from naturalized.

They also focus on age being the problem with “grey beard” rather than the implication that all senior engineers are men. I’ve always been turned off by the term not because it singles out age as a proxy for experience, because they’re literally proxies for each other. You don’t have 30 years of experience without aging 20 years. But not everyone with 30 years of experience can grow a beard or has a penis. Given the gender issues in technology, which are so obvious in the statistics over time, I genuinely think language like this calcifies the gender divide.

You are wrong. I'm from South America, and the "American" thing is an issue for many people. In Spanish, we don't even call Americans "Americanos" but "Estado Unidenses". Many people joke when Americans say they are Americans by answering, "yeah, me too." I couldn't care less especially because I know the difference between America and "The Americas" but many people don't

If you feel offended by referring to the two landmasses as "America", then rest assured there is no malice intended. Northern and Southern America are connected landmasses .. why not simply use the term "America" to refer to both areas? Remember, just because someone are not "sophisticated" enough to come to the conclusion that Americans can also be South Americans does not mean they are seeking to offend you.

And just to show that nothing is straightforward, if you were to refer to a Canadian as an American, they will definitely make a point to correct you.

This isn’t an issue for anyone but for people like yourself.

Like you said there are a couple words used for Americans in Spanish:

Gringo, Americano, Estadounidense.

That set of words does not intersect with any words used to describe anyone from South America. This applies to slang or official sources.

Please show me an example where a Paisa from Colombia or Argentino would like to be referenced as “American”.

In fact, especially with the World Cup win, any warm blooded Argentinian would fight if called “American”.

Plus it’d be an easy fight as someone who’s pushing for “words are violence” has clearly never experienced real violence.

If by "people like me" you mean people from South America then yes that's what I said. By the way I said I personally don't care. I was just correcting OP when he said that "literally no one is offended" when I know for a fact many are. Also I never said they wanted to be called Americans. And no idea what your point is with your violence blabber.

Lol “violence blabber”. Call a spade a spade.

I too am from South America, never have I seen anyone down there assume they are “American”.

This is just a ban list, or better yet a black list to bring a 1984 dystopia.

If your point is that it offends "no one", except "people like [the other commenter]", i.e. people that are offended, then I guess this would apply to any word about any group.

I’m also from South America and my observation is that it’s not an issue for almost all people. The only people that I’ve ever seen make it an “issue” do so to try and be pompous to some gringo. They don’t really care. It’s meaningless flexing.

> Literally no one is offended that people in the United States of America are referred to as American

Actually, no - my Mexican wife is genuinely offended when I refer to US citizens as Americans, or when I refer to the United States as America.

So I do it as often as I can.

I wouldn’t be so sure. I (a European) have occasionally used “American” in that sense when speaking English in a group of foreign students in Europe that included one from Latin America, and he somewhat pointedly substituted “from the States” etc. in his replies. He never went as far as correcting me, and I never explicitly asked if that phrasing annoyed him, but it seemed like it did.

Of course, there’s a substantial difference between annoying and offending, but it seems like there are, in fact, reasonable people who object to that usage.

In addition to my sibling posts, I do wonder about “Americans” who are not from the North American continent, e.g. people that live in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam etc. or even Puerto Rico to an extent (or especially Puerto Rico since “Americano” in Spanish usually means from the two continents and the Caribbean).

This demonym is really unfortunate.

I've had Canadians thank me for always specifically calling USAmericans "USAmericans", instead of just "Americans", because they didn't want to be put into the same bucket.

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