Often used by people who are American (from the Americas) but not from the US. Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and the rest of North and South America.
Let's change the name of America to the United States of America and move it from the front of drop down lists to the end.
Many years ago an Australian show famous for comedic Vox Pop street interviews had a hilarious run on "Asking Americans to name a country that started with the letter U".
Nobody in their right mind calls any of them by their full names. The rules are more-or-less consistent, it's just pedantry to complain about "America."
Elsewhere, others living on orbiting aggregates with surface soil like to occassionally disambiguate.
Naturally this seems insane to the exceptionalist denizens of Dirt.
Mexico alone is clear, a Mexican is a citizen of the UMS. The UK is equally clear.
Outside of the United States, particlularly with other American, North, South, or Central ESL speakers, it's not so clear.
This is why the practice arose many years past, why the BBC once had clear style guides on not using "American(s)" in any articles until after the full name United States of America had been used to establish context for which Americans wre intended.
> it's just pedantry to complain about "America."
Being clear isn't a complaint. It's taken as such by the small minded with a horizon limited by a halo about their head.
I don't think I have EVER seen "American" used to refer to "North and South America" outside of geography. That goes for when I'm outside the US, too. It's certainly not what reasonable people would assume you're talking about.
This discussion is really unproductive, so I guess we'll just have to disagree.
I'll refrain from reproducing the OED 2nd Edition entry for American unless you really want it, there are three uses as a adjective, five as a noun, the Adjective Use 2, variation c is "United States specific", ( 1.a is "Belonging to the continent of America. Also, of or pertaining to its inhabitants." )
So, you know, a few hundred years of printed use, with citations, says that others have seen it used more widely than yourself.
To be fair, that's all an aside to me .. what has caught my eye in the past few months is a few commenters on HN getting quite upset at "USAian, USofAian, etc" variations appearing here. Clearly this is new to some, others have seen such contractions about forums for four decades.
It follows from pre 2000 (ish) BBC and other style guides that eschew using "Americans" to refer to US citizens until after the context has been established, leading to older BBC articles and broadcasts opening stories with "In the United States today .... Americans reported ...".
From that, in (say) forums discussing i18n and|or l10n (the usual contractions for Internationalization and Localization) with Koreans, South Americans, various Commonwealth types etc. USian became a short fast way to specify which group of North Americans reference might be made to.
This seems straightforward, reasonable, non evangelical, and something a majority immediately "got" w/out batting an eye .. certainly causing less fuss than using "i18n" and other contractions.
I have to agree with you that the meaning of "Usian" is obvious from context in almost every case and it is a really annoying form of pettiness that makes a song and dance about it in protest every time it appears.
To change it now (why? to avoid hurting the feelings of people, most of whom do not even speak or read English?) would be harmful. "Harmful" is a strong word, so I will explain.
I don't hate Russia, but if I did, I would like it if the Russian people somehow stopped being able to continue to use the main word they've been using to refer to themselves for centuries. It would make it slightly harder for Russians to have conversations about themselves as a social and political entity and to understand old books about their ancestors.
Web sites influence human behavior by making some operations slightly more difficult than others. E.g., the "Accept all cookies" button is a prominent color whereas the "Reject all cookies" link is less so. The point is that a "trivial inconvenience" that is encountered often (i.e., whenever anyone tries to start a conversation about Americans) might have a significant effect over future decades in making Americans feels less united with their countrymen and discouraging discussion of American identity (because for example "USian" is more awkward to use in a spoken conversation than "American" is).
Sure, US citizens are, after all, a subset of North Americans and are Americans just as are South and Central Americans.
English speakers in the United Kingdom and elsewhere have indeed written many texts and articles in which they discuss the United States of America, events in the USofA, and then move to talk about Americans .. having established the context of which Americans they refer to.
This was explicit in BBC guidelines and UK newspapers of note until perhaps the 1990s.
> I don't hate Russia, but if I did, I would like it if the Russian people somehow felt unable to continue to use the main word they've been using to refer to themselves for centuries.
It's not clear how this comes into play here. If Russian speaking ethnically Russian non citizens of modern Russia refer to themselves as Russian after their family ties to the former Russian Empire then surely anyone in the Americas can equally be referred to as an American.
> "USian" is more awkward to use in a spoken conversation than "American" is).
I've not heard it used in spoken conversation. In text forums where I've seen it used since the 1980s it's shorthand to contract first saying "United States of America" and then referencing US citizens as Americans.
It's been in low level general use on forums and IRC by non US english and ESL speakers since pre-WWW Usenet in my experience.
What has changed is I've recently seen it and close variations crop up here on HN, a primarily US forum, more and more in the past few months.
That'd dovetail in with your observation, but it's not a new coinage nor is it exclusive to disgruntled US residents by any means.
Or Red Sox fans.
I've never heard of USAnian before, but that doesn't mean it isn't used by some people, just not the ones I interact with.
Before USian, I'd come across Merkin, but usually British writers using it in a mildly derogative sense because of the word's other meaning.
In English, American means from the US, and there's no word to refer to an inhabitants of the Americas (both continents combined). You can say North American or South American if you want, though. Since those are continents.
You won't find "USAnian" in any authoritative published dictionary, not even the OED:
https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=USAni...
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=usanians
And anyway, official dictionaries are largely historical records, not authoritative sources for living languages. Words mean what people who use them intend them to mean.
It's not.
Anyone can put anything in Urban Dictionary, c'mon. Nobody said no one has uttered the term before.
If something is "often used", it winds up in dictionaries, with a lag of only a few years.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Usanian
I’ve heard or read the term at least once or twice along the way, I’ve even muttered it myself.
It might not ever rise to a common enough usage that the big dictionaries list it, or maybe it will.
I probably wouldn’t say it’s frequently used, but probably not rarely either.
Anyway, Meriam Webster has United-Statesian https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/United%20Statesia...
How do you cope with Modern English previously never having been a language anyone spoke or wrote?
Seems like a waste of talent and energy.