The proper term is American.
everybody born in the american continent is technically “american” too
The implied context of your question is in English.. In the English-speaking world, there is no American continent. People from North America are North Americans; people from South America are South Americans. People from the United States of America are American. There is no ambiguity. There is also no good term to collectively describe everyone from the Americas but there’s also rarely any need to discuss that.
I consider terms such as “USonian” and whatnot to be highly offensive. Nobody should tell a people what they are allowed to call themselves in their own language just because the same word means something else in another language. It would be like telling French people they’re not allowed to call their arm a bras because it refers to an article of clothing in English. Other languages where America means something else already have their own terms for people from the US. English, however, has no real ambiguity except that caused by those trying to shame Americans for calling themselves Americans.
lazyslacker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“highly offensive” lol wow chill out bud. It’s weird but doesn’t bother me at all. Let em call me whatever they want in whatever language they have.
kirklennon@kbin.social 1 year ago
Telling people what they're allowed to be offended by is usually a bad choice.
That's not what this is about though, which is precisely the point. In other languages, "America" means something else, and they all have other terms to refer to people from the US. The whole discussion is about what Americans should be called in English.
lazyslacker@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s ridiculous to give such weight and care to silly things like labels.
I don’t care what they want to call me in English. My comment was intended to read as dismissive of the entire conversation.