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If I lived with people that refused to acknowledge my right to call myself a res

ident of our house while continually offering less than a fair price for using m
y stuff, constantly use force, or the threat of force, me to live according to t
heir ideals, and continually interfere with my personal life, I'd be pissed.
Why Do USA Citizens Call Themselves "Americans"?
A semi-compelling argument along the lines of, "I had the toy FIRST so it's MINE
!" I do not dispute the etymology of the word, only the wisdom continuing to use
it as our demonym.
The confusion it causes,
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=670400
the offense it gives,
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/american-and-other-demonyms
and the bigotry it reinforces through the language we (humans, I mean) use; it i
nfluences the way we think about the world:
http://theunboundedspirit.com/the-power-of-language-how-language-influences-thou
ght/
"By saying that language influences the way we think, it should be understood th
at this does not mean that it absolutely determines the way we think 100% of the
time. Certain tribes in Papua New Guinea for example do not use language to com
municate thought-forms and yet they seem to perceive things just as others do. L
anguage certainly has a strong influence on how we think, however. Using words s
uch as he , mankind , and god for instance, transmits a particular perception of concept
s that are supposed to be all-encompassing while using words that are not. The g
eneric use of these words is dangerous in that it can hinder a person s understand
ing of the concept by limiting it to a particular category or construct. This is
why other words (humanity, source, etc.) are better choices for the words noted
earlier to describe the thought-forms in a more embracing and universal way. Th
e very fact that there is no word in the English language for an genderless bein
g (it is impersonal and therefore cannot be applied) demonstrates that there can
be a hindrance or limit on one s ability to perceive something in reality."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
"We do not realize what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language h
as. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism o
f s[emantic] r[eactions] and that the structure which a language exhibits, and i
mpresses upon us unconsciously, is automatically projected upon the world around
us." Korzybski (1930) in Science & Sanity p. 9
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/45/15254.full
"In summary, the current results provide compelling and convergent evidence of t
he influence of language on perception. Surprisingly, the results suggest that l
anguage about faces may be disruptive to systems associated with the perception
of visually presented faces."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3308142/
"These findings provide a cautionary note when we consider how language and perc
eption interact. No doubt, the words we speak simultaneously reinforce and compe
te with the dynamic world we perceive and experience. When language alters perce
ptual performance, is it tempting to infer a shared representational status of l
inguistic and sensory representations. However, even performance in visual searc

h reflects memory, decision, and perceptual processes. We must be vigilant in ch


aracterizing the manner in which language and perception interact."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=American
American
1570s (n.); 1590s (adj.), from Modern Latin Americanus, from America (q.v.); ori
ginally in reference to what now are called Native Americans; the sense of "resi
dent of North America of European (originally British) descent" is first recorde
d 1640s (adj.); 1765 (n.).
Those who now inhabit pretty much every country south of the United States' bord
er are the descendents of the what are now called Native Americans and the rapis
t, umm... I mean conquistadors, from Spain, Portugal, and France. I find myself
truly at a lost to determine which is more abhorrent - the sexual slavery practi
ce by those three countries during that era, or the outright extermination polic
ies Britain and then the United States pursued. So, yea, they actually had that
demonym first and I'd say the suffering of their female ancestors outweighs the
butchery practiced by ours.
On a personal note, I grew up in East Texas, one of the last redoubts of the ign
orant bigot (look up Vidor); I can't tell you how many times I heard the phrase,
"He's Mexican, not an American," as though his Latino heritage made him shit to
be scraped of a boot. Didn't matter that the person in question was born in thi
s country and spoke no Spanish.
It scared me the number of
ng the lines of, "It's not
llateral damage in pursuit
y, to be sure, but it only
.

Marines I met while active duty whose opinion ran alo


like they're American," in response to the idea of co
of mission accomplishment. It was a miniscule minorit
takes one shit-bird to create an international crisis

The words we use on a regular basis limit and influence our ability to perceive
reality. Take the so-called UFO phenomenon. You've already got flying saucers an
d little green men in your mind, right? Yet "UFO" is simply an acronym for Unide
ntified Flying Object - if you see something flying in the air and don't know wh
at it is, you've seen a UFO. After a bit of observation, you might identify it a
s a plane, bird, balloon, or whatever. You still saw a UFO - as in an object fly
ing through the air that you could not identify, even if only for a moment. If y
ou saw something like that, but were never able to identify it would you call it
a UFO, something else for fear of having to join the tin foil hat brigade, or j
ust not speak of it at all?
Using "American" the way most US citizens do does not follow the standard conven
tion for demonyms (word I learned yesterday - it means "the word for people from
a place"). From Texas? Texan. From New York? New Yorker. From Germany? German.
From Europe? European. From Asia? Asian. So if you're from one of the American c
ontinents, you should be American, but you're not. According to the common usage
in English, the only "Americans" are United States citizens.
If I lived with people that refused to acknowledge my right to call myself a res
ident of our house while continually offering less than a fair price for using m
y stuff, constantly use force, or the threat of force, to make me to live accord
ing to their ideals, and continually interfere with my personal life, I'd be pis
sed. US citizens (USC's maybe?) constantly do this to the rest of the Americans
on these continents. Yet because of the way language affects our perceptions, it
is remarkably difficult to convey this to those who get all emotionally protect
ive of the "way it's always been".
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If y

ou can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the
words. ~Philip K Dick

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