Friday, September 17, 2010

US-ian just doesn't sound good

(I was going to talk about school. There are a lot of things that I very much want to say but want to say correctly, and given that the draft I just wrote is laden with grammatical errors and is generally unpleasant to read, I'll save that for Monday.)

Instead, I'll comment briefly on how annoying it is when people get pissed off when Americans call themselves, well, American.

"It's an entire continent!" they protest. "Actually, it's two continents! Why do you get to call yourself American?"

Never mind that America is actually in the name of the country - the United States of America. Never mind that the other countries in the American continents have separate names that they are perfectly willing to use. Never mind that, as a generalization, most non-Americans wouldn't want to call themselves American because of the often negative connotation.

I'm not saying that the USA is superior to other countries-- it's not. And if you really, really like the sound of "American," then I'm sorry. Your life is hard, I know. You have to go by Canadian or Mexican or Portuguese or [fill in the blank] instead. Boo-freaking-hoo. That is real suffering right there.

Seriously: get over yourselves. It's not going to change any time soon. Of all the reasons you could criticize the US -- and there are many -- you go for one of the pettiest, most idiotic insults? What are you trying to accomplish? What point are you trying to prove? Do you think it makes you seem more intelligent? Witty? Because it really doesn't. It's just annoying and pretty obnoxious.

Plus, like, don't freaking blame us for it. US residents have been calling themselves American for a long time-- before we were born. You're seriously attempting to call us out for an insignificant fact of history that was established 250 years ago? Trust me, we have a much worse past than a freaking name. And so does your country, FYI. No, seriously-- whatever America (yes, America) has done wrong, your country has almost certainly done something just as bad. (Although maybe not using the atom bomb, I'll give you that. Although: not to validate its use or anything, but Russia would have invented it even if America hadn't, so... don't get too high and mighty.)

Fo' reals.

P.S., Alex, you know I still love Canada and all the other non-American countries. It just gets frustrating sometimes. Chill the crap out, y'all.

2 comments:

Alex said...

I've never actually had a problem with Americans calling themselves Americans. Ever.

Call yourselves what you like.

As another note, I wish there was a word to jointly describe Americans and Canadians. Because when you say things about North America and how car-centric and oil based we are, it kind of feels like you're including Mexico in that, which seems off. But that's just my weird quirkiness.

Renata said...

Super-North/Middley-North-American? But phonetically, for what it's worth, I like the word Canadian more.