Sorry, the expression is only used by the twerpiest of twerps. "Americans" is universally understood to refer to citizens of the USA, and no sensible inhabitant of the Americas takes offense at that. After all, their countries all have proper names. But the worst offense is to the ears, and to Mother English.

No sir. It's the US citizens who took the name of America, the continent, in the 19th century to refer to just one country. Before your war of independence, it was used only to refer to the natives, as something denigrating. You've grown used to it, but that's not completely true in the rest of the world. In Spain,the correct term is "estadounidense". In Mexico they call you "gringos", not "americanos", since they are Americans too. In Argentina, quite the same. I understand that this term, Americans, is frequently used to refer to persons from the USA, but it's incorrect, or at least not totally appropriate.

I'm not an English speaking native (just speak four languages and probably none of them correctly), so I guess I can adapt words as I'm so ignorant. So please let me use whatever terms I like and I´d appreciate a less insulting attitude on your side. On this forum I´ve been called idiot, donkey and twerp, not bad for a place where we are supposed to discuss in a friendly way.

A made-up controversy by pedants and malcontents. Excuse me.

And Mother English may not be his/her native tongue.

And I have heard people from other North American countries point out that 'American' could apply to themselves as well.

>>>And I have heard people from other North American countries point out that 'American' could apply to themselves as well.<<<

And if they do, people will assume they are citizens of the United States. If, for some reason, they wished to identify themselves in terms of their continent, they should say North (or South) American.

America is just one continent. In the US you learn that there are 7 continents, for some reason that I don't know. In the rest of the world, to my knowledge, it's 5 continents. As shown in the Olympics flag, five circles for five continents.

Negative, these were people who were ticked off that Americans (US Citizens) would refer to themselves as 'Americans'. They made quite clear American isn't a specific enough term, as it applied to them as well...and then tried to clear up the part about continents being called North and South America.

This was when I lived in Panama...I sure didn't bring up that was Central America, as that isn't a Continent, and my Spanish could in no way cover anything that complex.

>>>In the US you learn that there are 7 continents, for some reason that I don't know. In the rest of the world, to my knowledge, it's 5 continents. As shown in the Olympics flag, five circles for five continents<<<

To tell the truth, I didn't know that, but (apologies for using wikipedia):

• The seven-continent model is usually taught in most English-speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom[23] and Australia,[24] and also in China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and parts of Western Europe.
• The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is mostly used in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan.
• The six-continent combined-America model is often used in Latin America,[25] Greece,[15] and countries that speak Romance languages.
• A five-continent model is obtained from the combined-America model by excluding Antarctica as uninhabited. This is used in the United Nations[26] and in the Olympic Charter[27] in its description of the Olympic flag.

Indicating to me that by far the greater portion of the world's inhabitants distinguish between North and South America (and most likely use "American").

>>>Negative, these were people who were ticked off that Americans (US Citizens) would refer to themselves as 'Americans'. They made quite clear American isn't a specific enough term, as it applied to them as well...and then tried to clear up the part about continents being called North and South America.<<<

Like I said, the province of pedants and cranks (and people jousting at windmills). I fully get that most of the world resents the power and wealth of the United States and the way those strengths have often been abused. That does not excuse such barbaric constructions as United Stateser or USAn.

Here's a pretty good and balanced discussion of the issue: https://www.theatlantic.com/national...y-mean/276999/

Once here...barbaric comes from the onomatopeyic way the Romans referred to those peoples that spoke uninteligible languages to them, that, is barbarbarbarb...

USAn is an interesting (and I believe, most appropriate) way to denominate those citizens of the USA, which of course are Americans, as they live in the American continent, divided also into North America (Canada, the United States of America and the United States of Mexico), Central America and South America (too many countries to list them all. No resent at all towards the USA, by the way, where I lived and have many, many friends and some relatives. There are nice and hateful people all over the world, in every country, can´t focus in just one.

Again, good to know we live in a planet divided into from 4 to 7 continents. Wikipedia in Spanish mentions Eurafrasia or Afroeurasia as just one continent, but no country acknowledges this.

Very interesting, and supporting part of my argument. For one thing, the name of America comes from Americo Vespucio, an Italian cosmograph of late 15th century, early 16th c., that identified the new "discovery" as another continent, and that´s why those parts of America that had been "discovered" were called after his name. By the way, the current USA had not been yet been discovered by the "conquerors" when America got its name.

<<If enjoying animal cruelty because it's part of a country's culture is acceptable to you then that's quite shocking. >>

I never said, or even hinted at, that. Your reading comprehension is faulty, or you are extrapolating wildly. You stated you didn't care where or when the tradition of bull running started - it was irrelevant. Obviously it didn't start with any intention to torture bulls; it was the wide practice of transhumance. THAT is not, and never has been, irrelevant. Neither are innumerable other ancient traditions, in any culture. That's the point I made, but you skewed it to fit some notion that I endorse the torture of animals.

Are you really that dense that you didn't understand my response? It had NOTHING to do with animal torture. It had EVERYTHING to do with people traveling to try to understand others' cultures.

Are you really that dense that you couldn't see that my response to the pathetic attempt at claiming that bull running is an innocent event that initially bore no connection to the barbarity of bullfighting was to pour scorn on it and call it out for what it is? No, you'd rather opt some shameful attempt at virtue signalling goal scoring. I'm not interested in your pathetic attempts at one upmanship, I'm more interested in highlighting the savage practices still being excused as "culture".

To be fair, you could also condemn Newmarket for its horse racing, North America for its rodeos and all those cat ladies who have too many cats to look after.

By the way, "virtue signaling" has got to be the daftest way to insult other posters on a forum. I find it's used primarily to scare the cattle into a stampede.

I've already condemned horse racing, rodeos would come in for the same criticism in some respects however they're often displays/training of working animals, a bit like sheepdog trials. Cats don't need looking after, they're more than capable of independent living and can hunt and feed themselves quite easily unless they were kept locked up indoors in which case that would be a concern for the RSPCA due to the individual nature as opposed to a widespread 'cultural' activity.