Alternative words for American
There have been many attempts to coin an adjective—specifically, a demonym—for United States nationals, as an alternative to American, a term which can be ambiguous. The various attempts include:
- Appalacian
- Colonican
- Columbard
- Columbian
- Frede
- Fredonian
- Uesican
- Uessian
- Unisan
- Unisian
- United States (as an adjective)
- United States American
- United Statesian
- USAian
- US American
- Usan
- USAn
- Usanian
- Usian (pronounced "YOU-zhuhn")
- U-S-ian
- Usonian
- Washingtonian
References to these words have been around since the early days of the United States, but all of the variants are virtually unused and American remains by far the most common usage.
Use of these terms has been practiced and advocated to distinguish U.S. nationals from people living in other countries in the Americas. In practice, in the English language, American without any modifier (such as South American) is generally understood to be a U.S. national and nobody else. In other languages, notably Spanish, American is more ambiguous.
Advocates of these terms believe that, since America is part of the names of both North America and South America, American ought to be understood to mean, "inhabitant of the Americas". Indeed, in the Iberoamerican countries, the use of "American" to refer only to a US citizen could be considered politically incorrect and culturally agressive.
It should be noted that several of these terms have direct parallels in languages other than English. Many languages have already created their own distinct word for a citizen of the United States:
- United Statesian directly parallels the Spanish term estadounidense. In French, the term Étatsunien has also been coined, but enjoys little more currency than United Statesian in English.
- Usonian, a term used by Frank Lloyd Wright to describe one style of his architecture.
- Usanian is derived from the Ido word Usana.
Despite being grammatically non-standard, "US" is increasingly accepted as the preferred adjectival form when precision is necessary.
In other parts of the world, there are also pejorative synonyms of the standard word for American. In Latin America, there is gringo (although that can also apply to the English), and, in several languages, local adaptations of Yankee. In the UK and Australia, the name septic tank or septic is sometimes used, based on rhyming slang for Yank. In Australia this is sometimes further shortened to seppo.
See also
External link
- Electric Editors, "EDline". Editorial mailing list. Vol. 4, no. 9; March 7, 1999.