American (word)

In some expressions, it retains this Pan-American sense, but its usage has evolved over time and, for various historical reasons, the word came to denote people or things specifically from the United States of America.

In its noun form, the word generally means a resident or citizen of the U.S., but is also used for someone whose ethnic identity is simply "American".

The noun is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States when intending a geographical meaning.

Compound constructions which indicate a minority ethnic group, such as "African-Americans" likewise refer exclusively to people in or from the United States of America, as does the prefix "Americo-".

French, German, Italian, Japanese,[a] Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian[b] speakers may use cognates of American to refer to inhabitants of the Americas or to U.S. nationals.

They generally have other terms specific to U.S. nationals, such as the German US-Amerikaner,[6] French étatsunien,[7] Japanese beikokujin (米国人),[8] and Italian statunitense.

In normal parlance, the adjective "American" and its direct cognates are usually used if the context renders the nationality of the person clear.

This differentiation is prevalent in German-speaking countries, as indicated by the style manual of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (one of the leading German-language newspapers in Switzerland) which dismisses the term U.S.-amerikanisch as both 'unnecessary' and 'artificial' and recommends replacing it with amerikanisch.

[10] The respective guidelines of the foreign ministries of Austria, Germany and Switzerland all prescribe Amerikaner and amerikanisch in reference to the United States for official usage, making no mention of U.S.-Amerikaner or U.S.-amerikanisch.

[12] For referring specifically to a U.S. national and things, some words used are estadunidense (also spelled estado-unidense, "United States person"), from Estados Unidos da América, and ianque ("Yankee")—both usages exist in Brazil (although "americano" is more frequent), but are uncommon in Portugal—but the term most often used, and the only one in Portugal, is norte-americano, even though it could, as with its Spanish equivalent, apply to Canadians and Mexicans as well.

Američan (m.) and američanka (f.) can refer to persons from the United States or from the continents of the Americas, and there is no specific word capable of distinguishing the two meanings.

[a][23] In Swahili, Marekani means specifically the United States, and Mmarekani is a U.S. national, whereas the international form Amerika refers to the continents, and Mwamerika would be an inhabitant thereof.

Samuel Johnson, the leading English lexicographer, wrote in 1775, before the United States declared independence: "That the Americans are able to bear taxation is indubitable.

[35] The official name of the country was reaffirmed on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which says, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".

Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America.Thomas Jefferson, newly elected president in May 1801 wrote, "I am sure the measures I mean to pursue are such as would in their nature be approved by every American who can emerge from preconceived prejudices; as for those who cannot, we must take care of them as of the sick in our hospitals.

U.S. President George Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address, declaimed that "The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation.

"[41] Political scientist Virginia L. Arbery notes that, in his Farewell Address: "...Washington invites his fellow citizens to view themselves now as Americans who, out of their love for the truth of liberty, have replaced their maiden names (Virginians, South Carolinians, New Yorkers, etc.)

Get rid of, he urges, “any appellation derived from local discriminations.” By defining himself as an American rather than as a Virginian, Washington set the national standard for all citizens.

In 1801, the document titled Letter to American Spaniards—published in French (1799), in Spanish (1801), and in English (1808)—might have influenced Venezuela's Act of Independence and its 1811 constitution.

[13][g][59] The Real Academia Española advised against using americanos exclusively for U.S. nationals:[16][60] [Translated] It is common, and thus acceptable, to use norteamericano as a synonym of estadounidense, even though strictly speaking, the term norteamericano can equally be used to refer to the inhabitants of any country in North America, it normally applies to the inhabitants of the United States.

Alternatively, the term norte-americano ("North American") is also used in more informal contexts, while estadunidense (of the U.S.) is the preferred form in academia.

Under the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, a "citizen of the United States" means: Many international treaties use the terms American and American citizen: Products that are labeled, advertised, and marketed in the U.S. as "Made in the USA" must be, as set by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), "all or virtually all made in the U.S." The FTC, to prevent deception of customers and unfair competition, considers an unqualified claim of "American Made" to expressly claim exclusive manufacture in the U.S: "The FTC Act gives the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S.

One uncommon alternative is Usonian, which usually describes a certain style of residential architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.