What do foreigners think of the United States of America?

[insomniac17]

PBBN43 said:

insomniac17 said:

I personally disagree with this. The name of the country is the United States of America. The name of Canada is Canada. The name of Mexico is Mexico. Only one of these has America in it, and that is the US. Canadians, Mexicans, and Americans. It is not out of arrogance that we use the term American, but because the name of our country contains America. What would you recommend we use instead?

A demonym derived off United Stated could be less ambiguous, like "United Statesian". It doesn't sound good (especially in English), but it's more adequate. Although, perhaps it would be more suitable to not use a demonym as the US doesn't have a "proper" country name like the rest of the countries do. Lots of cities don't have a demonym and I've never seen anyone complain about that.

And if "It is not out of arrogance that we use the term American" how can you explain US citizens referring to the country as "America"? That seems arrogant to me.

I think that it would be more inconvenient to not have anything for citizens of the US. It is a quick and easy way to identify someone as from a country, rather than saying "I'm a citizen of the US." What that term is, I don't really mind too much. The American label has been around forever, and that is how I grew up identifying myself. It is also how the rest of the world identifies us.

It isn't arrogant either. Again, America is part of the name of our country. We didn't choose the name, but it is what it is. Rather than say "United States of America," most of us shorten it to the USA, the US, or America. I have no problems just using the US if people are offended by America, but I do not think that it is fair to call us arrogant for using America to identify the country when that is part of the country's name. I can tell you that I do not know a single person that uses America out of some twisted desire to put down every other country in both North and South America.

PBBN43 said:

insomniac17 said:

Great! Now here's what you do. Go convince the rest of the world to use those terms. I did not choose the term, but I use it because that is what is commonly accepted; just the same as everyone else. If you don't like it, change it. Get people to change the word that they use. If you do that, then we can all be proud that the term American can be applied to not just any single country, but to any person living in North or South America.

To blame citizens of the US for using the term American is absurd not only because America is in the name of our country, but also because none of us chose it. It has been around longer than any of us, and the rest of the world uses it too.

America is NOT the name of the country. It's part of the name, in reference to the continent. Up untill the US' indepence in 1776 (and for a few more decades too), there's not a single written mention of the usage of the word "America" as the name of the country. It only happened after the US selected its name, so it wasn't originally intended for the US to be called "America".

I said it is in the name of the country.