this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social -2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

USAian

If you really want to go down that road, use something like “United Statesman” or something that actually fits the language. “Americanian” is absurd and people will take you less seriously for it.

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Spanish has it: estadounidense (unitedstatesian)

Other than that, it's no one's fault but the USA's they gave their country such a stupid name (stealing the one of the continent)

[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I really hate to break it to you, but the name “America” didn’t come from the Americans.

(And if the person I replied to had been speaking in Spanish, I wouldn’t have had any reason to reply.)

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I hate to break it to you, but the name America as it was chosen by Europeans was meant to be the name of the continent.

The name USA was chosen by unitedstatesians when creating the country. A stupid mistake. Everyone else managed to pick a name, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina.... but not the USA.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

USAian reads better than USAn 🤷 And I'm not going to type out "United Statesman" every time I want to refer to something USAian like a car. "United Statesman car".

[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

“USAian” doesn’t read better than anything when it’s a made up word that looks ridiculous. Just say “a US car” or “American”.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

lol alright then. Good luck dictating how a language operates.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Like you were trying to dictate how I speak? Yeah, I won't be doing that.

[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, my dude. You just seemed like a non-native speaker of English and I was trying to help you out. It’s what I do for a living. I’ll be happy to teach “USAian” to my students if it ever becomes commonplace vernacular that they would likely hear on the streets. Unfortunately since it’s kind of grammatically nonsensical and weirder to both say and understand, that might take a whole lot more effort to accomplish than you seem to think it will. Good luck though. I find linguistic evolution interesting, so I won’t stop you.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

I see now where you were coming from. It would've helped to ask if I was a non-native speaker.

Nobody's forcing anybody to say USAian. It's a personal preference and it gets the point across.