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A better synopsis?
A person of the Americas, as defined chiefly in Latin America. A citizen of the United States of America, as defined chiefly in Anglo-America. CaribDigita ( talk) 18:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Not that this doesn't seem to already be a point of contention, but why is "A person or attribute of one of the nations of the Americas" listed first? Common meaning of 'American' in the English-speaking world is a citizen/national of the U.S., and as English is the language of this particular wiki, it would seem fitting to put the common ENGLISH meaning first, rather than the Latin American/Pan-American PoV. Likewise, if the Spanish/Portuguese wikis want to list them in an order suitable to their cultural norms, fine by me. However, I don't see any point in bending over backwards to cater to a Pan-American PoV, other that to push that PoV. Not that I expect anything to come of this though. -- L1A1 FAL ( talk) 04:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Why do we need consensus here. It's only spanish speakers taking issue with our.demonym. Boot em off and use your logic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.73.190 ( talk) 19:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so Wikipedia tells me in this article that "American" is an ambiguous term and has about an equal chance of meaning "somebody from the United States" and "someone from west of the Prime Meridian". In fact, judging by the ordering of the terms here, I should maybe assume that "American" first and foremost is referring to someone from the Americas.
Okay, I'm game! Let's take a peak at some articles and see if this is how the term is used, shall we? Johnny Depp for instance. Hmm, he's "an American actor", eh? Someone from the American continent? But what country is he from? How about Thomas Edison? "An American inventor"? Not too informative, that. Dan Brown? "An American author"; okay, you see where I'm going with this.
Now you might say, well, that's fine; they are technically all "Americans" in either sense of the word, aren't they? Except that isn't really how other articles work. John Logie Baird "was a Scottish engineer and inventor", Van Gogh "was a Dutch post-impressionist painter", Ho Chi Minh "was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary", etc. etc. It doesn't say Baird was a Eurasian, or that Van Gogh was a Western European, right?
So, the only conclusion you can draw is that Wikipedia is using a term it defines as ambiguous to unambiguously refer to a specific group of people. It's a contradiction and it really needs to be sorted out. It is confusing to be told that somebody is an "American" in one article and then to go to the article for that word and be told "well, that could mean any number of things"! Sotrain515 ( talk) 20:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Un-indent... Le sigh. No, I just happened to use biographies as examples. Country music, The Ring (2002 film), Roots (TV miniseries), Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc., etc. all use "American" in the "from the U.S." sense, also. My argument is about the way the word "American" is used throughout this encyclopedia to unambiguously refer to one thing while this article tells me it can mean multiple things. I am not trying to enforce a rule, just to understand the discrepancy. Also, I have no problem with the American (word) article as it seems to accurately reflect the way the word is used on Wikipedia (except in this article, as I noted in my first response above)... In fact, I was trying to use that article's position on "context" to help my own arguments (poorly it would seem). Oh well, I've said my peace and then some. Thanks for listening. Sotrain515 ( talk) 19:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Personally I never use the word American to describe someone from the US. I don't understand why some people from the US think the have exclusive use of the term American. That's ridiculous. It's like the UK saying they are the only people who should be called Europeans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.4.16.10 ( talk) 23:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
My two cents: I have never in my entire life heard of Canadians being correctly referred to as Americans, nor Mexicans. In the case of Canadians, the only time you hear this is when someone erroneously refers to a Canadian as "American" in thinking they are a citizen of the United States, which is a common error. 68.146.70.124 ( talk) 18:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. Almost unanimous consensus that there is no primary topic here, between Americans, United States, and The Americas. ( non-admin closure) — Amakuru ( talk) 10:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
American →
American (disambiguation) – This page is currently clearly a disambiguation page.
American should redirect to
United States, as per
WP:COMMONNAME, and to match the plural article
Americans. This would also save tens of thousands of undisambiguated nationality links in tens of thousands of articles, current and to come.
Softlavender (
talk) 07:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.A discussion is taking place to address the redirect US-amerikanisch. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 13#US-amerikanisch until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed, Rosguill talk 18:31, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
American page. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 60 days |
This disambiguation page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A better synopsis?
A person of the Americas, as defined chiefly in Latin America. A citizen of the United States of America, as defined chiefly in Anglo-America. CaribDigita ( talk) 18:40, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
Not that this doesn't seem to already be a point of contention, but why is "A person or attribute of one of the nations of the Americas" listed first? Common meaning of 'American' in the English-speaking world is a citizen/national of the U.S., and as English is the language of this particular wiki, it would seem fitting to put the common ENGLISH meaning first, rather than the Latin American/Pan-American PoV. Likewise, if the Spanish/Portuguese wikis want to list them in an order suitable to their cultural norms, fine by me. However, I don't see any point in bending over backwards to cater to a Pan-American PoV, other that to push that PoV. Not that I expect anything to come of this though. -- L1A1 FAL ( talk) 04:09, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
Why do we need consensus here. It's only spanish speakers taking issue with our.demonym. Boot em off and use your logic — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.73.190 ( talk) 19:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so Wikipedia tells me in this article that "American" is an ambiguous term and has about an equal chance of meaning "somebody from the United States" and "someone from west of the Prime Meridian". In fact, judging by the ordering of the terms here, I should maybe assume that "American" first and foremost is referring to someone from the Americas.
Okay, I'm game! Let's take a peak at some articles and see if this is how the term is used, shall we? Johnny Depp for instance. Hmm, he's "an American actor", eh? Someone from the American continent? But what country is he from? How about Thomas Edison? "An American inventor"? Not too informative, that. Dan Brown? "An American author"; okay, you see where I'm going with this.
Now you might say, well, that's fine; they are technically all "Americans" in either sense of the word, aren't they? Except that isn't really how other articles work. John Logie Baird "was a Scottish engineer and inventor", Van Gogh "was a Dutch post-impressionist painter", Ho Chi Minh "was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary", etc. etc. It doesn't say Baird was a Eurasian, or that Van Gogh was a Western European, right?
So, the only conclusion you can draw is that Wikipedia is using a term it defines as ambiguous to unambiguously refer to a specific group of people. It's a contradiction and it really needs to be sorted out. It is confusing to be told that somebody is an "American" in one article and then to go to the article for that word and be told "well, that could mean any number of things"! Sotrain515 ( talk) 20:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Un-indent... Le sigh. No, I just happened to use biographies as examples. Country music, The Ring (2002 film), Roots (TV miniseries), Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc., etc. all use "American" in the "from the U.S." sense, also. My argument is about the way the word "American" is used throughout this encyclopedia to unambiguously refer to one thing while this article tells me it can mean multiple things. I am not trying to enforce a rule, just to understand the discrepancy. Also, I have no problem with the American (word) article as it seems to accurately reflect the way the word is used on Wikipedia (except in this article, as I noted in my first response above)... In fact, I was trying to use that article's position on "context" to help my own arguments (poorly it would seem). Oh well, I've said my peace and then some. Thanks for listening. Sotrain515 ( talk) 19:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Personally I never use the word American to describe someone from the US. I don't understand why some people from the US think the have exclusive use of the term American. That's ridiculous. It's like the UK saying they are the only people who should be called Europeans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.4.16.10 ( talk) 23:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
My two cents: I have never in my entire life heard of Canadians being correctly referred to as Americans, nor Mexicans. In the case of Canadians, the only time you hear this is when someone erroneously refers to a Canadian as "American" in thinking they are a citizen of the United States, which is a common error. 68.146.70.124 ( talk) 18:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. Almost unanimous consensus that there is no primary topic here, between Americans, United States, and The Americas. ( non-admin closure) — Amakuru ( talk) 10:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
American →
American (disambiguation) – This page is currently clearly a disambiguation page.
American should redirect to
United States, as per
WP:COMMONNAME, and to match the plural article
Americans. This would also save tens of thousands of undisambiguated nationality links in tens of thousands of articles, current and to come.
Softlavender (
talk) 07:12, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.A discussion is taking place to address the redirect US-amerikanisch. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 13#US-amerikanisch until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. signed, Rosguill talk 18:31, 13 May 2021 (UTC)