Re: [106attendees] Paperless arrival card

[Kyle Rose <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 11:29 AM Mike Bishop <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
>  However, from pure derivation from the name, “American” could apply to
> anyone from the two continents so named.  Your same link continues,
> “However, this usage is seen by some as a semantic "misappropriation" by
> those who argue that "American" should be widened
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_prescription> in English to
> also include <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change> people or
> things from anywhere in the American continents.[2]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_(word)#cite_note-Mencken-2>[3]
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_(word)#cite_note-Gage-3>”
>

Yes, and people do argue that. Nonetheless, the entire rest of the article
reinforces the point that the common usage is accepted by most
and—importantly—well-understood. There is no actual confusion about what
"American" means, only dissatisfaction among some groups that it has that
meaning. Language evolves in ways that are irregular and seemingly
illogical, but IMO that's part of what gives language its beauty. Many
words have multiple meanings, and the abbreviation of "United States of
America" as "America" leading to USians being referred to as "Americans"
makes perfect sense from that perspective.

Many official documents side-step the whole thing by using United States as
> a nationality.
>
I, too, looked for United States first, then for USA. "United States" seems
to be more common these days in official documents, so it probably makes
sense to use that as the official moniker for US nationality. But the
colloquial meaning of "American" as applied to people from the US is not
going away anytime soon.

Kyle

>