America and American

[Frank Abate]

In connection with this theme, the greatest collection of relevant evidence
is in a book of Allen Walker Read's collected papers, "America--Naming the
Country and Its People", which was published by Mellen Press in 2001.  It is
volume 4 in a series called Studies in Onomastics.  ISBN: 0-7734-7391-2.

Read studied the issue for many years.  btw, he also did papers on "Yankee"
and proposed derivatives from "United States", also in this volume.

Read is perhaps best known for nailing the etymology of "OK", and for
studying taboo terms well before this was considered a "proper" scholarly
pursuit.

Frank Abate