View Single Post
  #41  
Old May 16, 2011, 07:45 AM
Caballero's Avatar
Caballero Caballero is offline
Emerald
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 505
Caballero is on a distinguished road
Quote:
Originally Posted by aleCcowaN View Post
"Español latino" and "Usian" are both terms with a similar origin and purpose. The only difference are the addressees, one group more inclined to tolerate their assigned term than the other group.
The reason that Usian hasn't caught on to refer to people from the United States of America, and the United States of Mexico, is Usian sounds like some sort of extraterrestrial, or someone who uses something. There are the Vulcans, Romulans, Usians, Klingons, etc. The other reason is that no native speaker of English would ever use that term, as you can't derive a word like that by arbitrarily sticking -ian on any word you please, just like you can't negate a word just by adding un- to it, such as "ungood". It would be like referring to a Spaniard in Spanish as a Españaense, or an Argentine as an Argentinaense. Would they accept that? Would they decide to use it amongst themselves because an English speaker told them to? I doubt it. Therefore the only people that use that "word" in English are non-native speakers. The correct term for that would be "people from the United States"; "US residents", "US citizens" etc. There is no way of shortening it from that. Sorry.
__________________
Corrections are welcome.

Last edited by Caballero; May 16, 2011 at 08:15 AM.