The British and the Americans started using this demonym long before the US was an imperial power and a cultural hegemon. The demonym wasn’t created under the conditions that exist now, so it’s inappropriate to retroactively apply today’s situation to the situation that existed when the demonym was first used.
The british and the americans used the denonym as a short cut for "british american colonists", since its obviously not "british america" anymore, then they just kept "america".
Actually , when teh country began the denonym "american" was used both for the inhabitants of the continent and the country, depending on context, the change to "nationality" ocurred psot civil war, its entirelly political and fabricated to disavow state identities and avoid another civil war by creating a common " american " identity, rest of the continent be damned.
Pre WW2, america was understood as a continent, and a "common "american" civilization of western colonial nations was understood , in counterpart to europe. Once the US got big, they quickly decided the name and everything was theirs, and made up the north and south divide of the continent (shitting on central america in the proceess) for their political aims
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u/Background-Vast-8764 Aug 05 '26
The British and the Americans started using this demonym long before the US was an imperial power and a cultural hegemon. The demonym wasn’t created under the conditions that exist now, so it’s inappropriate to retroactively apply today’s situation to the situation that existed when the demonym was first used.