'murca (not sure if anyone actually calls it that).
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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I hear "The states," "The US," and "America" equally used here in Cali. Almost never do I hear "The USA" unless it's said like "the good 'ol US of A."
I say "the US"
Safe to just call it shithole now.
I refer to it as "the US", but refer to myself as an "American."
I'm a US citizen and lived there most of my life but refuse to call myself American. I'd rather call myself after my home state or country of birth, but saying you're from the US is an embarrassment. That country never did anything for me anyways, I spent my life fighting against it
I no longer live in the US
Sir this is Wendy's
Sir (or madam), they are not a "sir."
Sir this is Wendy's
Sir, pass me that spliff, please?
To add to the confusion. The Americas (or America) comprise the landmasses of North and South America in the Western Hemisphere
People living in North and South America (or the Americas) can also be called American or Americans if the were referring to the landmass.
Strangely the United States IMO is the only country that seems to indicate the landmass its situated on when using the full name, the United States of America. Not to mention the indication of a union of individual states as well.
Several single-word English demonym alternatives have been suggested over time, for example Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican, and United Stater.
Saying someone is a United Statesian or Statesian is probably the closest to how other countries like Canada (Canadian) or Mexico (Mexican) refer to themselves. If we forget that pretty much all other countries are a unity of states, counties, and or provinces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
Call us Yankees because it'll annoy the "the South will rise again" crowd
Thats's cuz English Language sucks.
In Chinese Language for example: A 美國人 (American (Country)) and a 美洲人 (American (Continent)). But in English both are "American".
Also so many syllabels converying so few info.
Literally 4 syllabels for "American"
But "美國人" or "美洲人" are both 3 syllabels and already contains [America-Country Person] or [America-Continent Person]
Sorry, no offense to English speakers, but as a polyglot, I just had to comment this xD
All languages convey information at roughly similar rates. Those with less information per syllable tend to say more syllables per minute. It's a fascinating area of linguistics!
All natural languages have ambiguities where the meaning of a word depends on context due to changes over time.
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Because I've been told by people of the other nations of these two continents that it bugs them and I had a nice and easy alternative
I'm all for a less voracious term by which to refer to ourselves, but it'd help if it were a little neater than "United Statesian."
Definitely a regional thing.
Most notably, the region of the United States in the Americas.
“This is America! I’ll call it whatever I want!”
I use America a lot
The dumber kids I went to middle school with called it America
Granted, that was in the 90s
In my country you can know someone's politics just by knowing if they call people from the USA americanos or estadounidenses.
estadounidenses
people actually use this in conversation?
When they aren't imperialist bootlickers.
ps: In Portuguese, United States is Estados Unidos - hence estadounidense.
Oh I understand the word, it just seems like a lot of syllables.
When they aren’t imperialist bootlickers.
That's not an ABSOLUTE true if you're talking about Brazil. Yes, some people prefer to use the term "estadunidenses" over "americanos" for political reasons, but I've seen some people on the far left using the term "americanos" too. The problem is that "estadunidense" is a long word, even if it has just one additional syllable compared to "americanos". Most Portugese words has 2-3 syllables and people tend to stick with shorter words.
But have you ever seen someone who is not far left using the term estadounidense/estadunidense?
It's like when you ask if someone smokes and the person says "smoke what?" you already know he's a pothead xD
To be honest I don't know, "estadunidense" is not as used as "americano", but I do think you're right. People who use "estadunidense" tend to be more anti-US.
I heard in a podcast recently that many people in the US still believed Africa was a country, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is somehow related to their using the name of their continent to designate their own country.
I hear almost exclusively people referring to the country as "America". This was actually a very conscious shift at the turn of the 20th century for people in public life to refer to the country as "America" instead of "the US" or "the United States" as we ..... acquired overseas territories and weren't a country only of United States anymore
Red Green calls us "americans", i call us fucked. Take your pick.
I've noticed this too but it seems like a left vs right thing. But never "the USA"
In Canada we usually refer to you guys as "the States"
Hello neighbor! Very interesting because down here we call ya'll "the Northern Folk"
That sounds badass I like it
I'll call it "the US" at the beginning of a conversation but mix it in with America afterwards as the context shows I'm talking about the US and not the continent.
That's just not true.
Ooosa
It's a question of shorthand and relative distance to the country. In most European languages, the spelling equivalent of America refers to the country by default. The continent as an entity doesn't get mentioned that much and when it does either context gets you there or a regional attribute like a cardinal direction or central. In my experience this applies to British English as well. "The United States" is often more cumbersome in translation and might require grammatical inflection when used in a local language - and confusingly could refer to Mexico as well. Funny enough though some languages adopted "USA" as another way to refer to the country, even if in translation this should get you a different letter combination.
Because of the dominance of the English in the United Kingdom, a lot of continental Europeans lazily refer to the UK as their version of "England." Might be Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, a channel island or what have you. We gave up in trying to distinguish. People and how they call places are like that. Quiet understanding beats accuracy.
UK always struck me as a bit imperialist wrt (Northern) Ireland, GB more neutral… but seemingly Scotland isn’t a massive fan of that one either, so
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When I hear the word "America", I always have the mental image of someone that speaks English in a non-American (or even non-Anglosphere) accent, and that this person either really likes America or really hates The US, no in between. Like sometimes I picture a person saying "America" in a heavy russian accent I think it just sounds so funny. I think I watched too many movies and I just like the russian accent... it sounds very intimidating and that's why it had that sort of "cool factor".
Also, I kinda mix both depending on how my brain is thinking. Sometimes I think my thoughts in Chinese and the "美國" automatically converts into English as "America", cuz nobody says "合眾國" (United States) in Chinese (at least not in the variants/"dialects" that I know of), cuz it feels like a generic term like "The Republic", doesn't make a lot of sense unless referring specifically to domestic politics.
As a Naturalized American Citizen, I sometimes feel like the term "American Citizen" feels like a wrong term, and the term "US Citizen" feels more "correct" to say.
I think that in Chinese, sometimes I hear "民國" (shortened from the full term 中華民國) to refer to ROC and I think "共和國" (shortened from the full term 中華人民共和國) can similarly be used similar to refer to PRC, when used in the context of Chinese history.
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