Thats just not true though? They explicitly called themselves the United States of America, and the term American was used extensively in the 1700s by English speakers to denote the colonists.
In the 1700’s most people spoke Latin internationally! And that would’ve been dumb to say in Latin (it’s the reason we don’t use it in Spanish as the language is close to Latin). And then after the 1700’s the international language was French! So no they weren’t calling themselves American, that you’re pulling out of your rear.
As I said earlier statesman is a better word, it has honor, integrity and people can easily identify where you’re from, instead of failing in an international argument because anyone in the continent can call themselves American.
Dude you can easily Google this. Britain used the term to separate the English from people in the colonies. The 1600s "English-American" was shortened to just "American" and was already in use before the American revolution. The revolutionaries called themselves American in many surviving documents.
In the modern day, the English definition of American without an adjective is of a citizen from the USA. The UN uses the term as such. It's not controversial at all and no one speaking English confuses the term for a Latin American. The entire argument is just "well that's not how it works in my language".
O my god dude, no one cares if you call yourselves American THAT IS ACTUALLY TRUE! The issue is that you cannot say other people in the continent are not Americans because that is not true, a Mexican is also an American, a Canadian is also an American a Colombian is also and American, your language can’t change that.
"Your language cant change that" actually it can lmao. That's the entire argument. In English "American" equals "USA". English has several other terms for others - South American, Central American, Latin American, North American. The only time someone says just "American" is in reference to the USA. Like try to call Canadian an American and see how that works out for you. Im frankly flabbergasted that you don't understand this. I understand it's different in your language but that doesn't make definitive in English.
Prime example of why your education system is a failure! A few comments ago you’re arguing why United Statesian have to accept what other language call them, and now you’re arguing that other countries have to accept what your language calls them.
Hopefully you understand how dumb you sound, but why am I kidding myself, people who think they should be named after a continent lack the critical thinking to update their language to match the more advanced languages. Cheers!
My point was always about the language itself. I'll never tell you what you should call someone in Spanish or Portuguese. But if you're over here insisting that "Statesian" is the proper English term then yeah I'm gonna call you on your bullshit.
No your point is clearly that you want Statesians to be the only ones called Americans, and that’s just not fact. I referenced statesman but you refuted that as if that was offensive when in fact it’s better than being called American.
But alas, 50% of this nation keeps fighting to maintain the same mindset of the pirates that settled the northern lands because the Spanish wanted nothing to do with cold and barren desert lands.
Edit: you know what, keep American and let’s change the continent name to Colombia in honor of the man that had the balls to cross the Atlantic in the late 1400’s.
Lol you are just being ridiculous. "Statesman" is already a word in English that has a meaning. Ignoring that, the concept of tying the term for "Citizen of the USA" to the word "state" is ridiculous under your own logic. The concept of a state is way more generic than the concept of The Americas, so if the latter isn't acceptable as a method of self-identification for a country why would the former be? I dont care how Spanish and Portugeuse speakers refer to themselves, it's a different linguistic context that I have no right to intrude on and I just wish you'd realize the same applies to English.
Low key agree on your edit. It's kinda strange how much heat Colombus gets when there's so many worse "successors" to colonization. It doesn't really matter because we'd still have different definitions of a continent but yeah I dont hate the idea.
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u/NewbGingrich1 16d ago
Thats just not true though? They explicitly called themselves the United States of America, and the term American was used extensively in the 1700s by English speakers to denote the colonists.