Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site osiris.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!aplcen!osiris!jcp From: jcp@osiris.UUCP (Jody Patilla) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.nlang Subject: Re: One for our side Message-ID: <591@osiris.UUCP> Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 06:28:40 EST Article-I.D.: osiris.591 Posted: Tue Nov 5 06:28:40 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 07:10:36 EST References: <973@decwrl.UUCP> <12580@rochester.UUCP> <1587@uwmacc.UUCP> <1385@ihlpg.UUCP> <348@ubvax.UUCP> Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital Lines: 20 Xref: linus net.politics:11179 net.nlang:3389 > In article <1385@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes: > >there is no word in the English language for inhabitant of the United States > >other than American. I can understand how Latin Americans and Canadians > >might not like this, but it is a fact. I'll be damned if I'm going to > >call myself a Unitedstatesian (ugh!). It is unfortunate that the same > >word, American, has more than one meaning, but it takes someone like jeff m. > >to convert this into a sign of US hegemony over the West. Spare us. > > That there's "no other word than American" in English (I dunno, just use > more than one word, maybe) for an inhabitant of the US means that > there's very little rhetorical defense against people who use "American" > as a buzz word for national destiny, etc.. Again, no surprise that > the language is built so that anti-nationalistic sentiments can't > be expressed in simple language. Languages in most countries are > social constructions codified by national official agencies. > Everywhere else in the world, they call us "yanks". -- jcpatilla