Comments on: Series: What I learned about America by living in Scotland, I

By: Angie

Angie — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:18:30 +0000

Mexico is located in North America.

By: What??

What?? — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:53:41 +0000

That’s a good point, there’s no continent called America, so therefore citizens outside of the US can’t be Americans. They can be North Americans, or Central Americans or South Americans, but it would seem that only people who are from the US are Americans.

By: BB

BB — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 01:49:31 +0000

Actually only the US and Canada make up North America, so only citizens of the US and Canada are North Americans. Mexicans can also be called Central Americans.

By: arizona

arizona — Sat, 29 May 2010 20:18:27 +0000

If many find it offensive – or incorrect to refer to US citizens as ‘americans’ – maybe we could start a new desrciptive term. How about if we simply called ourselves US citizens instead? Sounds good to me. If enough people start using it it will soon become the norm.

By: C.L. Barclay

C.L. Barclay — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 05:05:09 +0000

People living in the United States are Americans. They along with citizens of Mexico and Canada are also ‘North Americans’, as the continent is called North America, not just America. Mexicans and Canadians are not Americans, they are NORTH Americans, a subtle but important difference. South and Central America are on a whole different continent, and along the same lines the citizens in those countries are also SOUTH Americans, or CENTRAL Americans but not Americans.

By: Davixa

Davixa — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:58:24 +0000

You don’t call Germans, Spanish, French and/or Bulgarians nomads–they are European. The same way with the Americas. All people born in the Continent of North, Central, and South America are obviously as well Americans duh!!!. Europe is a continent the people there are Europeans!!! The smae is true with every continent.

By: adamjcopeland

adamjcopeland — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:53:06 +0000

Thanks for the comments folks.

I do mean nearsighted, which I will change. Funny thing is, I psyched myself out and around that definition. Not even sure it’s totally right now, but I’ll roll with it.

Regarding the very genuine question of whether to refer to the US as “America.” I studied this problem in several courses, and appreciate attention being drawn to it here. I think Ian’s right on both fronts: “America” for “US citizen” has unfortunate implications, and it’s pretty clumsy to use something else.

I understand ‘America’ as simply a shortening of my country’s full name, “The United States of America.” It’s a nickname for the US rather than an affront to America which includes those south of the Rio Grande.

I wonder, though, why don’t residents of south america have the same issue? Or do they? Isn’t it that the continent used to just be America from Canada to Chile and then it got broken up in smaller descriptors? “North America” Central A. South A. and so on?

This is ridiculously long, so I’ll stop. Unorthodoxy…I’m off to drink some of that whisky with no “E”

By: unorthodoxology

unorthodoxology — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:24:19 +0000

I don’t think people can appreciate just how big the U.S. is until they spend time in Europe. I loved Scotland, more for the whisky (not whiskey like in Kentucky) than the open space. I think your observations are generally spot on, though. Personally, I think the Bay Area resembles Scotland in a number of ways, both in the philosophy and the terrain.
We even have a few highland cows. Please tell me you are going to write about them.

By: Ian C.

Ian C. — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:00:55 +0000

Also, this post raises some thorny questions about the geopolitics of vocabulary. While in Panama, I was met with a good bit of antagonism whenever I used the term American to refer to a citizen of the United States. To Panamanians, all residents of North, Central, and South America qualify as Americans, and the fact that United States citizens claim the term, as you have, in reference to only one country is indicative of neo-imperialism. I hadn’t thought about these implications, but they’ve come to resonate with me, especially after studying the United States’ clandestine backing of military governments in Latin America in the 60s and 70s. In Panama, the term used to describe United States citizens is estadounidenses, which translates rather cumbersomely to, well, United States citizens. (By comparison, I don’t think any Scottish person would describe him or herself as British without bearing in mind the transnational implications inherent in British–vis-a-vis Scottish–identity.) Too bad we don’t have a U.S.A.-specific term that you could have employed in this post in place of American. Lover-of-freedom, perhaps?

By: Ian C.

Ian C. — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:42:22 +0000

I think you mean nearsighted–as in Americans have trouble seeing things far away (e.g. other countries).