Hyphenated Americans

[Jonathan Lighter]

Anybody who's a citizen is an American. So naturalized citizens count.

In theory. In practice, it helps to be born here. A naturalized citizen is more likely, I think, to be described as "from the Czech Republic," "from Africa," etc.

My guess is that the actual application of "hyphenated" national terms depends entirely on the sensibility of the speaker.

JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Hyphenated Americans
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On 11/13/05, Robert Wachal wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Robert Wachal
> Subject: Hyphenated Americans
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >Does a term like Czech-American apply to immigrants or only to people of
> >Czech descent born in the U.S.?
>

The same question can be asked WRT African-American.
--
-Wilson Gray

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