Non Americans: Does seeing American English bother you?

[Castian Blake]

by starting with "American english" even from here its wrong and highly unneducated.
Theres no such thing!
America its the whole continent, not just the US.
Same to refering the USA as "America" or its ppl "Americans" which technically they are, but not in the sense they refer to.

What would you have us call ourselves? United Statians? American is the only identifier we have that both makes a little sense and doesn't sound ridiculous

My friend even "United statians" its wrong since every union of city states are called United States, just like half the cuntries in the globe are named;
"United States of (insert country name here)"

Maybe "Capitalistians" or ... err.... sorry, i dont wanted to troll, but its how i think.

Actually, America is a fully accepted synonym for the USA, as it is an abbreviation. The 'A' in 'USA' IS in fact 'America'.

When referring to the continents, the plural 'Americas' is most often used. In the singular and by itself, America is almost always used to refer to the USA. When paired with modifiers such as North, South or Central, it refers to those geographic regions of the continental landmass known as 'the Americas'.

The adjective, 'American', similarly when used alone, is almost always in reference to the USA. And let's not forget that citizens of the USA themselves, use the words 'America' and 'American' in these ways to refer to themselves. Even American presidents use these terms!

I find it hilarious that you are treating words as static things unable to change, serve multiple contexts or be corrupted. They mean only what they are most widely accepted to mean in a community/population, and for an individual, there can be even more subjectivity in meaning. You are just splitting hairs. Words only have meaning through context, and when the context is right, so is the meaning.

You are most certainly splitting hairs.

Im happy for the quotng you give me!
so, let's start by this;
WHEN its paired with north,central and south, together these are American regions, not the "Americas", the Americas were used by foreign conquistadores.
The WHOLE continents name its America, thus everyone living are Americans, northAmericans refer to Canadians,USA's,Mexicans,and other island nations.
America as an adjetive its the whole, but the USA does NOT use it as it is but as an acronym, which its well accepted, yes as you said, but still wrong.
The fact your ppl, famous and even the president say it that way just shows how depth its this issue, how wrong and baddly used the acronym USA is.

"American United States of Mexico" its its official name,same with the rest of American countries except, of course USA.
"serve multiple contexts or be corrupted" i didin't,USA culture did, its my whole point.

"I find it hilarious that you are treating words as static things unable to change"
im treating words as they are,what they really mean, words will always mean the same.
the word "cool" its refered to as cold, AND to a nice thing, which one is wrong? even if the last its widely used its still WRONG.
Ppl outside the culture group that uses "cool" wrongly, uses "cool" by ts REAL meaning.


YES i know its widely used and accepted,like the cigar. But still Wrong.
Oh and by the way, America its NOT a synonim of the USA, its a Continent's Name.
The USA its an acronym, and i don't understad why, a certain country's name.

Sorry, thanks for the reply, but my post was correct.

'The Americas' is not just something that 'just the Conquistadors said'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas

Please tell me where I was wrong on this. I wasn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_america
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_america

"im treating words as they are,what they really mean, words will always mean the same.
the word "cool" its refered to as cold, AND to a nice thing, which one is wrong? even if the last its widely used its still WRONG."

This, however, is wrong. Words mean whatever people agree for them to mean. You are also disregarding the entirely correct aspect of idiom in English. Thus the word 'America' and 'American' can be used in various ways, depending on context. All words have the potential to change meaning and nuance in a living language, therefore clinging onto immature concepts like 'right and wrong' is pointless.

So, in conclusion (again), the Americas (or alternatively America), North, Central and South, are geographical terms which mean specific things in that context. However, this thread and most discussions like it, are NOT in that context, and are instead in a colloquial context.

So, while 'the United States' is the formal name of the country, 'the US', 'the States' and 'America' are ALL 100% acceptable, widely used and 'correct', colloquial synonyms. This is not debatable, sorry, regardless if you consider any of them to be 'wrong'.




Also, as for 'wrong' English, here's a great example. Next time you put on an apron, make sure you call it a 'napron', because that, according to your stance, is the 'right' form of the word. Shifting the 'n' is the product of a corruption.

Or here's another example: next time you say that something is 'miniature', make sure you are in fact talking about finely detailed line-work, written in ink made from the red mineral, minium. Gives new meaning, or should I say, 'right' meaning to 'miniature poodle'.

Agreed, mostly, thanks for a healthy debate.

Again iknow its well known and used, but lets say some other word, start changing its meaning by popularity, a metal for example,silver lets say, so we all know what silver is.
then a very small population starts refering "silver" as a synonim of AIDS,
"wut he got "silvered""
Silver will ALWAYS mean that metal, another meanings will be utterly false, yet accepted and used, and still, wrong.

Again, North,Central an south americas are geographical areas refered to as the Americas, but still, are areas of a whole continent, and not a continent by themeselves.
Same case with USA citizens calling themselves Americans its utterly right in the whole meaning, but its not as what they really refer to,arrogantly in my opinion.

oh and a guy PM me saying crap stuff about "well give my country a name", dood, thats either my point, at all.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Not really, the only time it does bother me is when i see night spelt nite because it just doesn't look right when written like that to me.

 

[Gralian]

Americanisations do bother me, for example; why the need to replace the letter S with a Z? That looks like something the 'cool kids' would do.

Adding 'ise' to a word does not make it into a legitimate term, particularly when it's added to so many words now.

You didn't 'get it for free'. You got it free. Free means nothing was exchanged in the transaction and you can't give something that doesn't exist.

Dialogue, analogue, armour, colour etc are how they should be spelt and i'll never understand why there was the decision to omit letters from certain words.

The vocabulary doesn't need to be reduced to pure slang and short-hand. Saying 'over-long' is incredibly lazy. Why can't you just say 'excessive'?

But what bugs me the most about American English is the simple fact it's considered English at all, when America itself consisted of colonists of many different nationalities. The fact American English is considerably different to British English would indicate to me it should simply be recognised as American, as those Americanisations are probably the product of all those different cultures and nationalities, not just pure native English speakers.

 

[Perryman93]

yes it most certainly does annoy me when Americans pronounce and spell English words incorrectly, but I can tolerate it, it is just the reluctance of some Americans to accept that the language isn't theirs, and when because of that, they try to tell others how to spell things in an Americanised way, when im pretty sure that English was originally spoken by the great people of England. (well, and the rest of the British isles)

Also, its called the Queens English for a reason, so please learn how to use it!

The Romans have a ~60% share in "your Queen's" language. I'd say that they own it, but that would be leaving out the Norse, the French, etc...

When you really come down to it, not much English was originally spoken by the British. It's fine, even etymology needs a Vanilla Ice.

I wasn't arguing about the origin of the language, I was complaining about its corruption from the form in which it is used in its native England.

 

[Ahomelessman]

It doesn't bother me, in fact I don't even notice British Spelling unless its pointed out. If you can read and understand the word who cares how its spelled.

Benjamin Franklin proposed a way of Spelling
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/franklin.htm

 

[MidnightCat]

It doesn't bother me most of the time. I'm used to the American spelling of words like "colour", "honour", "centre" etc., and I usually won't even notice them.

What does bother me is the way Americans write their dates. It's just not logical.
Also, mathematics = maths, not math. These two are my biggest peeves.

 

[Tallim]

The only thing that annoys me is when people refer to English as "British English." Using "American English" is fine as it distinguishes the altered version from the originating version. No idea why it annoys me so much, it just does.