From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat 23 Nov 2002 - 03:23:12 GMT
>
>
>On Friday, November 22, 2002, at 07:08 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
>
>>I once knew a gay fellow who stoutly maintained that he was a
>>Uranian. When asked what that meant, he would smile sweetly and
>>reply, "It means that I come from ur anus."
>
>'From', or 'in'?
>
>Anyway, here's another source-
>
>http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Usian&printable=yes
>
>Usian
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>
>The word Usian is one of the many attempts to create an
>adjective--specifically, a demonym--for United States nationals, as an
>unambiguous alternative to "American", which is the term usually used.
>Mentions of the word, and proposals to use it (or close variants), have
>been around at least since the first half of the 20th century. The usage of
>"Usian" is not common.
>
>Use of the word has been practiced and advocated to distinguish U.S.
>nationals from people living in other countries in the Americas. The
>concern that motivates use of the word is that, since "America" is part of
>the names of both North America and South America, it follows that
>"American" means, or ought to be understood to mean, "inhabitant of the
>Americas".
>
>Other words that have been suggested for the same purpose are Columbian,
>Columbard, Fredonian, Frede, Unisian, United Statesian, Colonican,
>Appalacian, Usian, Washingtonian, Usonian (among whose users was Frank
>Lloyd Wright), Uessian, U-S-ian, and Uesican (in approximately historical
>order from 1789 to 1939, according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of
>English Usage).
>
>Other examples observed in the field:
>
>• "Usanian"
>• "USAian"
>
>It should be noted that several of these terms have direct parallels in
>languages other than English:
>
>• "United Statesian" directly parallels Spanish estadounidense.
>• "Usonian" made its way into Esperanto as usona.
>• "Usanian" clearly derived from the Ido word 'Usana'.
>
>See also: Cultural imperialism, Ethnocentrism
>
>External Link
>
>• http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/vol4/4-9.txt
>
>Retrieved from "http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Usian"
>The page was last modified 06:57 Oct 13, 2002.
>
>
Back in the 60s I ran into people in the Far East who were trying to get the
U.S. Armed forces to stop putting the ending "-ese" on nationalities such as
Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, etc. They claimed it was a pejorative usage that
indicated an inferior group. They wanted us, instead, to use Burman,
Chinaman, and Japanman. It never caught on, but you can see it was on the
minds of people even then. I worked at the Armed Forces Radio Station for a
while in the Philippines and had people call in to complain that we were
deliberately denigrating them when we talked about the flip side of a record
because the slang term for Philipino was "flip." Disrespect seems more than
ever in the eye of the beholder.
Grant
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