Talk:American

The term American.

A better synopsis?

A person of the Americas, as defined chiefly in Latin America. A citizen of the United States of America, as defined chiefly in Anglo-America. CaribDigita (talk) 18:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

But this is the English-language wiki, regarding an English word. If it's defined differently in Latin America and Anglo-America, by definition, the latter should take precedence. Twin Bird (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, this is the English-language Wikipedia; not uniquely for the United States (of America :S). By preferring the USA's usage you are putting aside the opinion of the British, Canadian, Belizean and other Latin American people who actually speak English as their main language. --Isacdaavid (talk) 01:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's not just US-English usage, but in British, Canadian, Indian, and Caribbean English usage also, and in many other countries where English is widely spoken. A few native English speakers living in Latin American countries don't change what is common usage in English speaking countries around the world. - BilCat (talk) 03:50, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

order of definitions

Not that this doesn't seem to already be a point of contention, but why is "A person or attribute of one of the nations of the Americas" listed first? Common meaning of 'American' in the English-speaking world is a citizen/national of the U.S., and as English is the language of this particular wiki, it would seem fitting to put the common ENGLISH meaning first, rather than the Latin American/Pan-American PoV. Likewise, if the Spanish/Portuguese wikis want to list them in an order suitable to their cultural norms, fine by me. However, I don't see any point in bending over backwards to cater to a Pan-American PoV, other that to push that PoV. Not that I expect anything to come of this though. --L1A1 FAL (talk) 04:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Because they're the two most common references of the name in English. Instead of continuing the tedious and monotonous debates about which is "more important", "more common", "more searched for", "more correct" etcetera, it was simply agreed to place the items alphabetically. Nightw 19:20, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Why do we need consensus here. It's only spanish speakers taking issue with our.demonym. Boot em off and use your logic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.73.190 (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

"American" as used on Wikipedia

Okay, so Wikipedia tells me in this article that "American" is an ambiguous term and has about an equal chance of meaning "somebody from the United States" and "someone from west of the Prime Meridian". In fact, judging by the ordering of the terms here, I should maybe assume that "American" first and foremost is referring to someone from the Americas.

Okay, I'm game! Let's take a peak at some articles and see if this is how the term is used, shall we? Johnny Depp for instance. Hmm, he's "an American actor", eh? Someone from the American continent? But what country is he from? How about Thomas Edison? "An American inventor"? Not too informative, that. Dan Brown? "An American author"; okay, you see where I'm going with this.

Now you might say, well, that's fine; they are technically all "Americans" in either sense of the word, aren't they? Except that isn't really how other articles work. John Logie Baird "was a Scottish engineer and inventor", Van Gogh "was a Dutch post-impressionist painter", Ho Chi Minh "was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary", etc. etc. It doesn't say Baird was a Eurasian, or that Van Gogh was a Western European, right?

So, the only conclusion you can draw is that Wikipedia is using a term it defines as ambiguous to unambiguously refer to a specific group of people. It's a contradiction and it really needs to be sorted out. It is confusing to be told that somebody is an "American" in one article and then to go to the article for that word and be told "well, that could mean any number of things"! Sotrain515 (talk) 20:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The very first line on American states: See American (word) for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts. That page appears to pretty much walk you through the various context scenarios you describe. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, okay, let's talk about that article then. American (word) more or less says that "American means someone/thing from the United States" in its second paragraph, which is pretty much in direct opposition to what this dab page implies, no? Of course, it goes on to say that it could also mean any of the other things listed on this page, which then leads me back to my first argument. Also, that article says that the word used within the United States almost always has the "from the US" meaning, which I assume implies that articles about U.S. subjects on Wikipedia would then use "American" in that sense; but how would you know any specific article, such as the ones I listed above, was talking about someone from the United States when the adjective used to indicate that is ambiguous in the first place? That's circular logic, isn't it?

Articles about the U.S. use "American" in the sense of "from the U.S.". You can tell they're about the U.S. because they say the subject is "American". That doesn't work... Sotrain515 (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it is generally assumed that anyone who is literate enough in English to be able to read the article on Johnny Depp, for example, already knows what "American" means without having it explained to them. We used to have many of these references linked to United States, but users have de-linked most of them on the grounds that the usage is commonplace and doesn't need to be explained. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:32, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, the first line of American (word) states "The meaning of the word American in the English language varies, according to the historical, geographical, and political context in which it is used." (emphasis added) It's not our job to define how the word "American" should be used ... the simple fact is that in actual practice, the term has a different meaning depending upon the context in which the word is used. For someone where English is not their native language, context can sometimes be tricky until they learn the idiosyncrasies ... but for those who are literate in English, the context should be easy enough to recognize the appropriate meaning. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 22:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, guys. Really not trying to be contrary, just trying to wrap my head around it. I'm going to boil down both your arguments to the following in order to shorten my response, let me know if this is over-simplification: "American" is a word that is obvious in its meaning (to a native speaker) such that its meaning can be gleaned from the context. Now, I have two problems with that argument. Number one is that this encyclopedia is not just for native speakers. ESL users should feel equally at home here, right? Okay, the second problem I have has to do with that "context" part of the argument. In most if not all of the articles that use the word "American" somewhere in the lede, the word itself is helping to define the context. That's what I meant by "circular logic" (perhaps a poor term?) in my last response. The context you are referring to, I assume, is that "in the U.S. itself this usage is almost universal, with any other use of the term requiring specification of the subject under discussion" (from the American (word) article). Fair enough, except, as I said before, the word itself is being used to define the context, right? I mean, let's say Johnny Depp was born in Venezuela, grew up in Chile, went to university in Canada, currently lived in Belize and still worked mainly in Hollywood. His hypothetical article would then still begin "Johnny Depp is an American actor and musician", wouldn't it? In fact, both of the opening paragraphs could remain completely unchanged and still be equally accurate, yet they would be using the word "American" in a completely different sense. Sotrain515 (talk) 13:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

As your primary argument appears to be in the use of the term within biographical articles, and not actually an issue with this article, you would probably be better served having this discussion at WT:BIOGRAPHY. This article's sole purpose is to act as a disambiguation page to docuent how the term is used and to direct users to possible meanings, not to create rules for how it should be used within other articles, nor anywhere else in the world for that matter. The American (word) then provides guidance on understanding the meaning from the given context, and if you have issues with that article, you should be discussing those issues at talk:American (word), not here. This is simply the wrong page for the discussion you seem to be wanting. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Un-indent... Le sigh. No, I just happened to use biographies as examples. Country music, The Ring (2002 film), Roots (TV miniseries), Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc., etc. all use "American" in the "from the U.S." sense, also. My argument is about the way the word "American" is used throughout this encyclopedia to unambiguously refer to one thing while this article tells me it can mean multiple things. I am not trying to enforce a rule, just to understand the discrepancy. Also, I have no problem with the American (word) article as it seems to accurately reflect the way the word is used on Wikipedia (except in this article, as I noted in my first response above)... In fact, I was trying to use that article's position on "context" to help my own arguments (poorly it would seem). Oh well, I've said my peace and then some. Thanks for listening. Sotrain515 (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I never use the word American to describe someone from the US. I don't understand why some people from the US think the have exclusive use of the term American. That's ridiculous. It's like the UK saying they are the only people who should be called Europeans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.4.16.10 (talk) 23:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally I generally use the word American to describe someone from the US, but I do occasionally use it in other contexts to refer to people from the Americas, such as "Latin American". I don't understand why some people from Latin America think they have exclusive use of the term American. That's ridiculous. It's like Italy saying they are the only people who should be called Latins because Latin Americans don't speak Latin. - BilCat (talk) 13:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. If they use "North American", "South American", "Central American", "Latin American", etc because North America, South America, Central America and Latin America exist... then the people of the United States of America should be called "US Americans", with "US" as and adjetive, like North/South/Central/Latin/Whatever. They have no rights to use the demonym "American" exclusively, and better save that word to refer to people from any country of America, like: Canadians, US Americans, Mexicans, Costa Ricans, Jamaicans, Peruvians, Chileans, Argentinians, Brazilians, etc--190.236.35.8 (talk) 12:05, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Some US citizens do use the term US American to refer to themselves, and I wouldn't have a problem using it in English when speaking to certain over-sensitive Latin Americans such as you two. However, even if all 300 million-plus US Americans started using the term exculusively today, there would still be hundreds of millions of English speakers from around the world who would still use "American" to refer only to US citizens as they do now. And since English WP represents worldwide usage, it would still be used that way on WP for many years, thus providing many more years of enjoyment on these talk pages. - BilCat (talk) 12:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

My two cents: I have never in my entire life heard of Canadians being correctly referred to as Americans, nor Mexicans. In the case of Canadians, the only time you hear this is when someone erroneously refers to a Canadian as "American" in thinking they are a citizen of the United States, which is a common error. 68.146.70.124 (talk) 18:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

But they are. Canadians are Americans (not United States citizens) because Canada is a country of the Americas, and the demonym of someone from that landmass is "American"--186.106.231.27 (talk) 07:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

In Spanish, yes, but not in English. Not unless you want your nose punched by some angry Canadian. - BilCat (talk) 07:54, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

In English too. Canada is in the Americas/America, right? so... what's the demonym for the people of that landmass?. Let me search it for you -> American--186.107.121.152 (talk) 04:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Americas-ians. - BilCat (talk) 06:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

In English, there really isn't a noun for "peoples of the Americas" - but the adjective is "Pan-American". WilyD 09:05, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Wily. I don't take these people, ie. the one posting the "America is not a country" stuff over and over, seriously, as they're not here to learn. The article explains fully the usage of the words for those who care to be informed. The rest are just fun to watch. An example of someone who is willing to learn about the customs of others is found at Talk:Americas#Just a doubt. :) - BilCat (talk) 10:16, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

United States-ians.--186.107.124.251 (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there really isn't any...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/American

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/es/definicion/ingles/American?q=American

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/American

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/American?s=t

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/American

http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=American

American n (resident of the Western Hemisphere)

In one sense, a Canadian is an American as much as any New Yorker.

I lol'd--186.107.124.251 (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

"In one sense, a Canadian is an American as much as any New Yorker." This article ia about the other sense. As you well know. - BilCat (talk) 01:55, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

American is also anyone from America/Americas (North, Central, South, etc) you like it or not, that is listed on dictionaries.--186.107.124.251 (talk) 18:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, which is why American is a disambiguation page. The word "American" has more than one meaning in English. We have a page that lists various encyclopedia topics that the word might refer to. It amazes me that this is a constant topic of discussion; the fact that the word can be used in multiple ways is really not subject to dispute. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:53, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem with the fact that American can mean someone from the US in one context, and someone from the Americas in another context. But the former definition is used almost exclusively by the majority of English speakers all over the world, and by speakers of many other languages also. That wasn't the word's orginal meaning, but it is its primary meaning in English now. No amount of carping by a few Latin Pan-Americans will change that. That they futilely continue to do so here is just fun to watch - BilCat (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

That not change the fact that American in English also mean someone or something from America(s), we are not talking about primary or second meaning here -186.107.101.59 (talk) 17:40, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we are. There's no other way to discuss it. - BilCat (talk) 18:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

No. --186.107.101.59 (talk) 08:02, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

In English, "prove" can be used to mean "test". This sense is retained in modern English in a few quirky ways (e.g., the alcohol content of spirits is determined by proving them). Nonetheless, we shy away from using prove in this sense in articles because it's a tertiary meaning, and likely to cause confusion. The same applies to American/America. Yes, a handful of people who long for the days of colonialism and imperialism still use "American" to refer to the Americas. But we shouldn't misrepresent the usage by implying it's equal to the modern usage refering to the people/culture of the United States. WilyD 09:18, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 14 January 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Almost unanimous consensus that there is no primary topic here, between Americans, United States, and The Americas. (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 10:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

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American → American (disambiguation) – This page is currently clearly a disambiguation page. American should redirect to United States, as per WP:COMMONNAME, and to match the plural article Americans. This would also save tens of thousands of undisambiguated nationality links in tens of thousands of articles, current and to come. Softlavender (talk) 07:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support as nominator, per my rationale above. Softlavender (talk) 07:15, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - Americans and United States are separate articles, either of which is a very plausible target when someone searches for/links to American. Realistically, American (word) is also a likely primary target. Without a single, primary target, this is rightly a disambiguation page (and it's self-evident that it doesn't have one - of the first two people to comment, the first apparently believes United States is the most likely target, the second would guess it's Americans, and in all likelihood the third is gonna favour redirecting to The Americas. Note that WP:COMMONNAME has absolutely nothing to say relevant to what this article should be titled, except perhaps to support the status quo, so it's unclear why it's linked as an argument. WilyD 10:35, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. It's unusually for a country's adjective to redirect to the country's article. See British, French, German, Mexican, etc. Rob984 (talk) 16:30, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rob984 -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 07:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment This seems to me to already be a contradictory misnomer type subject. Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer of south America. GregKaye 07:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Huh?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: Does not comport with our usual practice (see examples given by Rob984), and that's before we get into the fact that it has multiple meanings ("of or relating to the United States", "of or relating to the Americas", "of or relating to the North American colonies of Great Britain, before and during the American Revolution", etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:17, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Could refer to the U.S., but just as likely (maybe more so) to American people (or the Americas). Zarcadia (talk) 13:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rob984's comment. CookieMonster755 (talk) 03:56, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The global consensus is fairly clear, except a handful of curious exceptions (Canadian comes to mind). --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. "American" is very confusing to non-Americans. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - dude, Norwegian doesn't redirect to Norway. Red Slash 03:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"US-amerikanisch" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect US-amerikanisch. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 13#US-amerikanisch until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:31, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Suggest moving the order of definitions

As a birth-citizen of the United States who loves geography, I am frustrated by the hegemony of ignorance that my fellow citizens take with them whenever they travel, eroding the simple concepts of geography and politics that the rest of the world has defined.

By the numbers, more people in America live OUTSIDE of the United States than inside. By simple math, the first definition of American should be someone who lives in the Americas, not someone who lives in the United States. Guylaen (talk) 08:30, 28 October 2024 (UTC)