This text answers a question asked by several readers of the United States mail. To register for free in the newsletter, click here.
Should the media use the word “United States” rather than “American”? -Mail readers in the United States
Words and names sometimes become “symbolic battlefields”, said Duty Linguist Gabriel Martin. As we saw recently when the President of the United States, Donald Trump, demanded that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed, on Google Maps and elsewhere, the Gulf of America.
Another subject of discussion: the fact that, since the first days of the United States of America or almost is called their inhabitants the “Americans”. Here as in France, readers claim that we rather use the name “American” and the adjective “American”, to highlight the true importance of the United States on the continent.
“America – the Americas – is a continent, not a country. Inhabitants of this America, we are American, in the same way as Europeans live in Europe. By accepting and using the term “American” to designate and qualify the realities of the United States of America, we encourage their erroneous perception of hegemony and supremacy, ”writes the reader Vincent Monet.
“With the election of Donald Trump for a new mandate in these United States and its admitted intention” to annex “possibly Canada, I believe that it is high time to assert loudly that America and its 35 countries and territories do not belong only to the” United States of America “by clarifying it clearly when it is referred to this country,” added another reader, André-Gilles ASSELIN.
Accept as dominant?
For his part, the writer and translator Pierre Monette notes that “the Americas largely overflow the borders of these United States which has long been the names for the appellations America et Americans ». “Hence the relevance, even the need, to generalize the use of the designation” US “insofar as, as Pierre Bourdieu points out:” Giving an individual or a group the name he gives himself, the emperor, the nobility is recognizing him, accepting him as dominant, admitting his point of view, accepting to take the point of view of perfect coincidence. ” »»
It was recently in our pages that the word “United States” makes it possible to “make the share of things between the realities specific to this nation and those of the continent-and to rebel, as we do in Spanish-speaking America using the appellations Americans, Yankee et gringosagainst the hegemonic aims of this state which appropriated the name which should designate all the inhabitants of a space largely overflowing from the borders of the United States. “
In the United States, the famous journalist and linguist Henry Louis Mencken listed at the start of the XXe century a series of spare terms used between 1789 and 1939, among which was counted Columbian, Columbard, Fredonian, Peace, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican, Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Uhonian, Uessian, U-S-ian, Uesican et United Stater.
None, of course, has truly pierced to date.
Muriel Gilbert, corrector at Mondein France, saw fit to give the subject a chronicle on RTL last February, noting that a reader had criticized the newspaper of Donald Trump as the “American” president. “Indeed, Donald Trump is not the president of the whole continent … Even if he sometimes gave the impression of believing him, by evoking his fantasy of doing Canada on 51e State of his country. This is undoubtedly what explains the wish of this reader of Monde that we use a more precise vocabulary, ”she writes.
Au Duty like Mondewe use the words “American” and “United States” to designate the inhabitants of the United States. “We leave the authors of articles the choice of the word they prefer to designate the inhabitants of the United States or as an adjective. If the author writes “American”, “American”, we respect his choice. If another prefers “American”, “US-United States”, we respect her choice too, ”says the correctress Michèle Malenfant.
A historical error
In his column, Muriel Gilbert adds, specifying that the term “America” itself comes from a historical error.
“The very name of the continent, America, already comes from an error: it is a printer well from home, in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, who, the first, in 1507, wrote on a map of the new world the word” America “to honor the one he believed to be the discoverer of this brand new continent, Amerigo Vespucci. But Vespucci was nothing like an explorer, he was a simple merchant, arrived well after Christopher Columbus. In short, logically, America should have been called … Colombia. Without this French error, the United States of America would undoubtedly have become the United States of Colombia, and it may be said today that Donald Trump has just been re-elected by the… Colombians! »»
According to the linguist Gabriel Martin, “the word” States “is recorded in general dictionaries like Usito et The little Robert. These works bring up the appearance of the word to the years 1940 and 1950, but research in ancient texts makes it possible to find sporadic certificates from the first quarter of the XXe century “.
The discussion around the name “American”, to designate the inhabitants of the United States of America, is not new, notes Mr. Martin. “In 1928, we find in Le Figaro An article entitled “Should we create a word to designate the inhabitants of the United States?”, Where can we read this: “The term United Statesneologism still ignored by the French Academy, will he succeed in winning? Wouldn’t he already make progress? ” »»
In fact, we use the term “America” when we talk about the United States in the same way that we speak of “Mexico” to designate the United States of Mexico.
The great terminological dictionary of the Quebec Office of the French language publishes the following notice under the “American” entry. “The term” American “is much more widespread than the term” United States “to designate this notion. […] As the term “American” also designates a person living in America (from North, South or Central), some contexts do not always clearly discern the meaning given to this term. The spellings in one word, “Stésunien” and “Statesunien”, “Statesunian” and “Statesunian”, also exist and respond to the trend to simplify French spelling. The term “United States” corresponds to the normal way of names the inhabitants of a country, in this case the United States (elliptical form for American United States, more widely used than the latter), just like a resident of Canada is a Canadian, and he presents no ambiguity. »»
Un usage marginal
To date, the use of the term “United States” remains marginal, notes Gabriel Martin. A rapid overview of the corpus of Quebec texts of recent decades makes him say that the use of the word becomes more frequent, but it remains very occasional. “We find the term” United States “once for 35 occurrences of the term” American “, roughly. Either in about 3 % of cases, ”he says.
Chez Usito, The linguists find the use, specifies the linguist Nadine Vincent. “Our definitions take into account the different senses of the word“ American ”. But we don’t say that you have to say one and not the other. It is certain that if you want to be precise, “US-US” is more so. »»
In order for the definitions of the dictionary to change, “it would be necessary that, systematically, everyone starts to use” United States “and that we end up writing” aged “for” American “. […] It could be a possibility, but we are not there ”.
