Talk:American (word)

Phrasing of the page opening

Is this really neutral phrasing?

"In modern English, Americans generally refers to residents of the United States; among native English speakers this usage is almost universal, with any other use of the term requiring specification.[1] However, this default use has been the source of complaint by some residents of Latin America who feel that using the term solely for the United States misappropriates it.[2][3] They argue instead that "American" should be broadened to include people from anywhere in North or South America, not just the United States; these critics admit their proposed usage is uncommon."

This makes it seems like the only opponents to the term are "some residents of Latin America". People from other parts of the world can (and do) debate and disagree about the usage of the word "American", shouldn't this be acknowledged too? And what is the source for the statement that "these critics admit their proposed usage is uncommon"? Taking a look at the source number [1], it only seems to discuss what people from the U.S. call themselves, not "native English speakers". Indeed, the fact that there is a large debate about the meaning of "America/American" indicates otherwise to me. 85.229.199.235 (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

the statement probably exaggerates the complaints " by some residents of Latin America" who are not named. Who are these people and what do they know about English usage? And who are the unnammed and uncited people elsewhere who agree with them. Rjensen (talk) 02:44, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

In addition, isn't this extremely outdated? The sources it lists stem from 1947 [2] and 1983 [3]. Is it even accurate to leave this in there when the previous sentence is talking about 'In modern English'.

When it comes to language, "modern" includes the last century & longer. For example, in my case I learned English in the 1940s :) Rjensen (talk) 22:56, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

But, with respect, your example of being a native speaker who was socialized into the norms of the 1940s actually underscores the point that language has a shelf-life. The English that you learned in the 1940s probably doesn't do a great job of preparing you to understand what teenagers are saying on social media today, right? Those teenagers are native speakers, too. And, although some might grimace at the thought, those people are the future of the language. Those among their number who choose to have kids will teach their kids to speak the language within the modalities with which they are familiar -- which may or may not align with those that you are familiar with.

In language, evolution and change are constant, and with the advent of modern technology, the rate of change is more rapid now than it's ever been. Look at how popular modes of address from the 1990s are already dated and possibly even offensive, in some contexts, due to rapidly changing demographic and sociological trends in the modern world. I recently went back and watched a couple epidoes of Friends, an iconic show from the '90s, and due to cultural changes, it was surprising and striking how much of the content comes across as Archie Bunker-esque in the year 2020, even though nobody associated that mien with that show when it first came out.

"Language is the soul of culture." When culture changes, language must inevitably change with it. When you were a young man, words like colored, negro, or possibly even nigger where commonplace in the US. Now, the use of any of these, in most contexts, will mark you as something of a social reprobate in polite company. Just one, small example to underscore the point, but there are countless others.

Perhaps the word "modern" isn't academically correct, but colloquially speaking, in its sense of "contemporary", it is true that sources from 1947 are woefully out of date and do nothing to attest to the current state of the language. PhilHudson82 (talk) 08:46, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Unxplained rollback

As my five recent edits were rolled back by BilCat without explanation, I figure I should take the matter to the talk page. Regarding the statement, "I gave an explanation - it's not my fault you ignored it", with due respect to BilCat, that is not the case. His or her edit summary read, "Reverted undiscussed changes to citation format, other unnecessary changes". An edit having neither been previously discussed nor necessary is not in itself a reason for reversion. But even that aside, I would object to the assertion that, e.g., the correction of entirely inaccurately attributed quotations is "unnecessary". And there was no particularly substantial change to the citation format given that we are already using a system of footnotes with a "Works cited" list.

That being the case, with what do you take issue, BilCat, and what led you to believe the five edits to warrant using rollback? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Primarily two things, but the first is so major that it wasn't possible to just undo those alone.

First, you changed the citation format of the article. Per WP:CITEVAR, "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change." You may think your changes were minor, but the are not. Get a consensus first.

Second, some of your copy edits changes are improper, for example, changing "U.S." to "US". Per WP:NOTUSA - "...retain U.S. in American or Canadian English articles in which it is already established, unless there is a good reason to change it." You gave no such reason. - BilCat (talk) 23:31, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@BilCat: Primarily two things, but the first is so major that it wasn't possible to just undo those alone. That wasn't the most major change made by the edits, but regardless, it's always impossible to reverse any particular changes alone. And that doesn't explain why rollback was used on a good-faith edit.

Per WP:CITEVAR, "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change." You may think your changes were minor, but the [sic] are not. Get a consensus first. What concerns do you have, in that case? And regarding that provision of WP:CITEVAR, nothing precluded "seeking consensus" through editing if there were no particular concerns raised.

Second, some of your copy edits changes are improper. Which in particular? Regarding U.S. vs US, neither was in consistent use as required by the MOS, hence why the change was made. 142.161.81.20 (talk) 23:46, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Rollbacks can be used on good-faith edits, as long as an explanation is given in an edit summary. I gave one. As to the citation style, it's up to you to give a good reason for changing it, and to get a consensus for it. It's a confusing style for some editors. As to U.S./US, there were more instances of the former than the latter, so you should have defaulted to that style. - BilCat (talk) 23:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

As to the citation style, it's up to you to give a good reason for changing it, and to get a consensus for it. As WP:BRD indicates, "Before reverting a change to an article in the absence of explicit consensus, be sure you actually have a disagreement with the content of the bold edit (and can express that disagreement), not merely a concern that someone else might disagree with the edit." Without that, it's hard to know which aspect of it to justify given that I haven't the faintest idea what your concern is. Is it the use of {{sfn}}? Or something else?

As to U.S./US, there were more instances of the former than the latter, so you should have defaulted to that style. Why would we default to U.S. when WP:NOTUSA provides that we should "use US in an article with other country abbreviations"?

And finally, am I correct in understanding that these are your only concerns with the five edits rolled back? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 23:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Again, it's up to you to justify your changes. You propose a valid reason for changing citation styles, and then we can discuss it. As to US/U.S., remove the other abbreviations then. - BilCat (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

@BilCat: Regarding the citation style, again, our guidelines say: "Before reverting a change to an article in the absence of explicit consensus, be sure you actually have a disagreement with the content of the bold edit (and can express that disagreement)". But regardless, as I still don't know which aspect of the change to address, I suppose I'll discuss the inclusion of {{sfn}}. This is not a substantive change to an established citation style as the article already uses a separate "Works cited" section. The inclusion of {{sfn}} is for the purpose of conforming to the existing citation style, insofar as there is one. So what is your concern with that?

As to US/U.S., remove the other abbreviations then. Why? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 00:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, those were the main objections. I'll be happy to help restore those in a spirt of good faith. - BilCat (talk) 00:08, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Why was my correction of your unresolved edit summary reverted again? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 00:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Also, please do not revert the addition of someone else's comment in the case of an edit conflict. 142.161.81.20 (talk) 00:03, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Edit conflicts. It happens sometimes when you make too many changes to existing comments. Be more careful. - BilCat (talk) 02:57, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Are you suggesting I made "too many changes to existing comments"? I made one change, which you reversed multiple times, along with the addition of another comment. WP:EDITCONFLICT is clear that the onus is on you to resolve the edit conflict and removing someone else's comment for no reason is a clear violation of WP:TPO. How and why do you suggest I "[b]e more careful"? 142.161.81.20 (talk) 04:40, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Gratifying to see that, a decade on, common sense has prevailed

I remember coming to this debate back in the 2000s as a native English speaker and being flummoxed to find out that non-native speakers were trying to redefine words in someone else's language, lol. They managed to cause much angst and wrangling for a long time, as the history for this page attests, but it's nice to know that, as is always the case in life, the troublemakers eventually tired and went away, and when they did, simple fact was able to prevail.

This page, in its current form in 2019, now strikes all the right notes. It acknowledges that this tempest in a teapot exists, while also being intellectually honest about the fact that, endogenously within the native-speaker community, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY. It was only when non-natives tried to speak someone else's language in a culturally illiterate way that there was ever a problem to begin with.

This is the English wiki, and as such, it simply DOES NOT MATTER what people in other languages say or think. If it bothers you, feel free to go add the relevant info on those respective languages' wikis -- and leave this one alone! =P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.61.13.126 (talk) 11:16, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Rollback conflict, redux

This diff inserts two things that are flatly incorrect - the use of American is not a misappropriation - that idea doesn't appear in the cited reference, and even if it did such a fringe position would need to be attributed to whoever was arguing it rather than using Wikipedia's voice; and it's not incorrect to use American to refer to " to refer to people connected to the United States when intending a geographical meaning" - that isn't assert in the reference (the author does imply that other people might believe it and he's not interested in arguing with them, but he doesn't assert him, and again for such a fringe position it would need to be attributed to him if he held it, but he doesn't. It's also the case that basically every linguist would assert English-language usage can't be right or wrong, merely more common/standard or less common/standard, so we probably can't ever call usage an error in this way with an authoritative voice. this diff is also veering into original research-y territory (and is probably wrong to boot); in at least some contexts there is a widely used alternative (US as an adjective; it's use cases are somewhat limited, but US President and American President are both widely used, and are synonyms). A few of the other changes might be plausible, but when you stick in wrong information and misuse sources to push a fringe POV, you should expect the whole edit to get reverted, rather than expect people to devote a lot of time to see if there's anything worth salvaging. WilyD 08:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

American denotes a person from America not a citizen of the United States of America.

This is an article where posters from the USA have been going berserk. Even if in the USA a American denotes a person from the USA, is that the usage in all English speaking countries? Pointing to a sources that provides "Standard American English" is a bit absurd, because that denotes only part of the English speaking world and Wikipedia is an international Encyclopedia. I do not find the definition of an American as a citizen of the USA as the only definition in for example the Britannica or Merriam-Webster. The Definition of American as being from the Americas, or South and North America, or simple America comes always before the indication of an USA citizen. It seems to me that it is quite a bit of arrogance behind claiming that an American denotes an citizen of the USA only. One also has to look at the usage of American in different languages and countries and not only in the limited area of the USA.Jochum (talk) 06:01, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

This is English Wikipedia, so it's written from the point of view of how words are primarily used in the English language in all majority-English speaking countries, not just the USA. This article also mentions how other languages and cultures use the term "American", especially Latin America, which is where most of the objections to how the word is used come from. (I certainly don't go to Spanish Wikipedia and try to tell them what names they can call themselves in their own language, but there's certainly a lot of them doing so in English Wikipedia.) If you've read the article, then you should know all that already, so I'm really not sure why you're still going on about it. I guess words in your native language only have one meaning, which must be nice. It's certainly not that way in English! BilCat (talk) 06:39, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

OP just needs to review the sources in this article to have a basic understanding of the term. Time sink trying to explain any further. Moxy- 00:33, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

This article is not written in regards to how words are used in the English language. Standard American English is American English, not a standard for English. This article seems to be about how people from the USA wants this word to be used and they would like to eradicate any other use. Very important publications, Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam Webster, Cambridge Dictionary and Collins Dictionary are all not on your side. One can also quote Webster: "A native of America; originally applied to the aboriginals, or copper-colored races, found here by the Europeans; but now applied to the descendants of Europeans born in America.". One has here to add that in many English speaking countries it is referred to the United States or US and not America. I know that in the text there are qualifications about the use of American and America, but the opening statement is wrong, American is still used in the English language as somebody originating in America or the Americas, both meaning the continent or continents. And it is not about widening the definition, but having it narrowed here. Jochum (talk) 02:57, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. A good example is the term «Native American». It includes people from South America, Canada, and Central America, not just the USA. Verdlanco\^talk 11:51, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I was going to point out a previous discussion over at Talk:Americans/Archive 6#It is a bit strange to define American as a citizen of the USA, but that was a discussion Jochum started and took part in and so should already be aware of the issues with their comments, which are essentially the same as they were in 2023. - Aoidh (talk) 03:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)