You call us per state, but 'US Citizen' if you want to be boring.

Where are you from?
– I'm a per state.

That's stupid...

...IE, if they were from Texas, you'd call them a Texan. Just like if someone was from your Bavaria, they'd be called a Bavarian.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/101/503/536.png

But they were there like 10k years before the whole continent was even called America :P

For better or worse, at least inside the US and probably over much of the world excepting, perhaps, the rest of the Western Hemisphere, the best word is "American." Common usage has given us this and common usage always wins out, no matter the legitimate gripes.

I myself hate how momentarily now means "in a moment" in addition to the correct usage of "for a moment." Damn you, common usage! :)

Citizen.

No, I wasn't referring to that.

I was pointing out that your statement "except the natives everyone is an immigrant over there" is true for every country.

In Japan too for example, everyone is an immigrant except the natives.

Glad to see this didn't spread out there.
There are South Africans and even Central Africans (yep, there's the Central African Republic, remember?) who don't need to name themselves Africans only. Afterall, it's a whole continent.
Proud african here. Whoops :)

Yeah say that to an Ainu :(

Perhaps we should skip past globalism, nationalism, statism, and localism, and just call ourselves Pangaeans.

Or do some ancestry work to find the oldest dinosaur in your family and call yourself that.

American is correct, but you have to butcher the word and say it with a Southern accent, like this:

"I'm a Murcan"

And I can say that, cause I'm a Murcan. It's like the word government. We call it "the Gummint" or "The Gubmint".


I've always felt drawn to the Ankylosaurus. Does that mean I'm Ankylosaurusian.

Which one? There are two United States in North America.

Just don't try to file your status as that with the government. The IRS tends to frown on people listing their race as Sauropod on their 1040 form.

Speaking as a Canadian, this "problem" is viewed more as pedantry than anything. Pretty much no one here cares that "American" refers exclusively to citizens of the United States, even though we may share the American continent with them.

Canada has long been regarded by the United States as "that place we're going to get around to conquering eventually". Fortunately that stage of our relationship is in the past, but it really defined the political culture here. We're not stupid here up north, and most of our early history was defined by our efforts to not get conquered. There's a bit of a cultural gag reflex here, and the term "American" is a bit like a used handkerchief; we don't really want it. I'm sure it's really sentimental to its owners, but... you guys can keep it.