America and American

[Billionbridges.com]

> At 6:19 AM -0800 2/19/02, James Smith wrote:
> >Just my limited experience, but I knew several
> >Canadians in the 60's who, when they heard USians
> >refer to themselves as Americans, made it clear that
> >Canadians were Americans also.
> >
> Confirming anecdote:
>
> I remember being asked my nationality once at the Canadian border
> (probably late 60's) and being firmly corrected when I said
> "American".  The customs agent firmly explained that I was from the
> United States, and that Canadians are Americans too.  When Canadians
> say they're not Americans they mean "I'm not [what you mean by]
> American", which is different.
>
> larry

Interesting.  I'm a 35 year-old Canadian with ten years of crossing
many borders and living overseas with groups of Americans and
Canadians (among others) under my belt. I've never once come
across a Canadian who claimed to be "American".

I daresay that in the English-speaking world the issue rarely pops
up outside of academic circles. In Canadian newspapers, US citizens
are Americans.

If Mexicans are from the United States of Mexico, one can understand
why they see the United States of America as a misnomer. Here's a
modest proposal: why not change the name of the country to the "United
States of Washington"? Aren't you all, in a very real sense,
"Washingtonians"?

While indeed that's a cumbersome epithet, invariably it would be
shortened to "Washers". That rolls off the tongue quite nicely.

Even better, a Canadian with a certain comic sensibility might come
to be known as, erm, a "Dryer". <g>

Don
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