América y los Americanos

"Only U.S. citizens cling stubbornly to the incorrect use of America and Americans, and Canadians simply don't want to be confused for U.S. citizens."

There you go again Rob with your feeble, esoteric, and utterly pedantic "explanation" of Americans having no right to call themselves "American." The only "stubborn" person in the room is you.

Riddle me this: why is it that Americans are the only country NOT allowed to called themselves the name that is part of their official country name: United States of America? Mexico's official country name is United States of Mexico and they call themselves (gasp) Mexicans!

No other countries in North, Central, or South America would even consider calling themselves "American" but we do and you find that cringe worthy? Please!

I'm a military retiree. I've traveled the world. Everywhere we (stubborn people) go, everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) immediately recognizes us as a person from the United States of America when we say we're "American." Give it a rest.

All you've done is demonstrate you don't know what "America" is being referred to in the "United States of America". America is not the name of the country. American is not a nationality. It is the name of the entire continent, or supercontinent if you like. It refers to the collective of people and nations, as it was commonly used since long before the USA existed. Unfortunately, neither the Founding Fathers nor the Constitution ever gave its citizens a demonym, and therein lies the conundrum.

No, South Africans don't use your argument that "Africa" is in their name so that makes them Africans by nationality. Yes, the grammatical error is historical, and media has contributed to repeating the error. But Americans are reclaiming their collective identity and the title "American". Only stubborn U.S. citizens and Canadians who abhor being confused for U.S. citizens have a problem with this.

Sad to see you get angry about this instead of accepting the new information (for you) and learning from it.

Oh, and Mexico's name is "Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos". The United Mexican States. Mexico was trying to both flatter the USA with its new official name and at the same time show the U.S. how a demonym works.