American

[Jonathan Lighter]

Since we're talking about English here, the answer is the seventeenth
century.  And generally speaking, normal people around the world have no
problem with it. It's called "convention."

A better question would be, "When did 'USAian' comes to mean 'American'?"

especially since the usual one-up, ultra-PC term is "USer," pronounced
"You-Esser."  What an advance *that* is!

JL

On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at cox.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at COX.NET>
> Organization: Maybe tomorrow
> Subject:      American
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Where and how did "American" come to mean "USaian" the exclusion of
> Canadian, Mexican, Chilean, and so on?
>
> Does the rest of the world agree that the term applies only to the 50 US
> states (or, to avoid offence, the 57 states or the 60 states)?
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