• superduperpirate@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    You won’t find many people who would seriously complain about that phrasing, but it would come off as awkward and stilted to most people from the US.

    Awkward, stilted, and a little holier-than-thou.

    And if you extrapolate this and start saying Mexico Americans and Canada Americans for people in those countries, you’re just going to confuse people

    Mexico American - doesn’t make sense

    Mexican American - American whose origins lie primarily in Mexico

    Canada American - doesn’t make sense

    Canadian American - American whose origins lie primarily in Canada

    Frankly, I think most Canadians would probably feel insulted if you addressed them as Canada Americans. They don’t want to be tainted by association with us.

    • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgOP
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      3 days ago

      Mexicans and Canadians have those demonyms, so no need to worry for them.

      Frankly, I think most Canadians would probably feel insulted if you addressed them as Canada Americans. They don’t want to be tainted by association with us.

      I’ve seen Canadians being okay with being called “North Americans”, when discussing something impacting both Canada and the USA, so it seems in this situations it’s fine by team. Canada Americans would indeed be strange.

      • OpenStars@discuss.onlineM
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        2 days ago

        Take this with a grain of salt bc small sample size, but I’ve also heard from South or Latin Americans that simply saying “American” = USA. It’s just that rest, I don’t know why.

        Language might be one reason, and Hollywood and other cultural exports, but also I think people there identify more with like a Global South than as part of the American continent.

        So to me it’s one of those things that you would think increase welcomingness and inclusivity, but for whatever reason in practice kinda somehow does the opposite (or not opposite, but just has the negative effect of sounding awkward without much of any positive benefit).

        But I’d be happy to be proven wrong if that’s actually the way it is. If you find out, please let us all know, maybe with a post about it!? :-D

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgOP
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          2 days ago

          Take this with a grain of salt bc small sample size, but I’ve also heard from South or Latin Americans that simply saying “American” = USA. It’s just that rest, I don’t know why.

          In English, I assume? Because in Spanish, they would usually use “Estadounidense” (https://dle.rae.es/estadounidense)

          • OpenStars@discuss.onlineM
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            2 days ago

            I did strongly wonder if that is the reason why, but ultimately can only guess or relate from someone who actually knows:-).

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgOP
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          3 days ago

          The UK British example is interesting.

          Not British, so hopefully I’m not butchering this up.

          UK is Great Britain (so Scotland, England, Wales) + Northern Ireland.

          UK British in opposition to UK Northern Irish makes limited sense because both demonyms are enough to see who’s who (British vs Northern Irish). And if you want to go deeper, you can use Scottish, English, Welsh.

          To have a situation similar to America would be to have the English using British to only qualify themselves, disregarding Scottish and Welsh people.

            • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgOP
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              2 days ago

              Ah, indeed, it’s more clear. In summary, there should be another name than “British Isles” to describe that archipelago. Interestingly enough, it seems like schools books in Ireland indeed do that

              In October 2006, Irish educational publisher Folens announced that it was removing the term from its popular school atlas effective in January 2007.

              ‘The British Isles’ has a dated ring to it, as if we are still part of the Empire".

              Writing in The Irish Times in 2016, Donald Clarke described the term as “anachronistically named”

              A bilingual dictionary website maintained by Foras na Gaeilge translates “British Isles” into Irish as Éire agus an Bhreatain Mhór “Ireland and Great Britain”

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_British_Isles#Republic_of_Ireland

              So, if we were to use this logic for the USA, there may be another demonym to use? Spanish has “Estadounidense” (https://dle.rae.es/estadounidense), which in English would be something like UnitedStatesian, or USian