Raake

Vivian

@Raake

Part-time human, full-time critter

  • she/they/it

A shapeshifter of sorts
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🏳️‍⚧️ Mtf

🩶 Gray ace (🔞)

💊 ADHD

😴 Perpetually eepy
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profile pic by Lilly

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Raake
@Raake
lorenziniforce
@lorenziniforce
MOOMANiBE
@MOOMANiBE

if you're about to write a culture post and considering using the word "western" to describe said culture, consider if what you actually mean is "american", if it is, use that instead.

Does your case apply to France? Spain? Finland? Poland? If your answer is "I have no idea, I'm just writing about my culture (america)" then just say american, seriously

lorenziniforce
@lorenziniforce

corrolary: also consider if you mean "modern" when you say "western". for as many things you think are "western" that are US-only, there's as many things that you think are "western" but are actually just how shit works all over the world right now.

Things aren't actually that different in much of asia, for example,

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in reply to @MOOMANiBE's post:

whitelotuz
@whitelotuz

While I like the message here, is there a better way to phrase it USA-specific? "American" just like "European" is a continental wide adjective most people not living in USA feels awkward about when used to describe a culture we don't share in (although we're heavily influenced by ofc). Its kinda similar to the point you're making, just one level deeper 😅

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fyscuit
@fyscuit

I don't think there's anyone who actually uses the term American to refer to anything that isn't USA, specially since we have the term Latin American to refer to (pretty much) everything else. You could use "North American" instead but that bundles up Mexico in things that are also not relevant to it, so IMO American is the best way of not being misunderstood

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sutempest
@sutempest

French has proposed États-Unien (lit., United-Statesian). It never received any kind of widespread adoption, so we're right back to using Américain. I think Portuguese has estadounidense in a similar vein, but they, too, seem to use americano far more often.

Practically speaking, the problem comes from the name the United States has chosen to refer to itself. If you separate the two words, they can refer to any kind of union or any kind of state, which makes determining what we mean a giant pain.

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whitelotuz
@whitelotuz

Yep I do not know the context on how the name was chosen but that's definitely the case in practice!

And yep in Spanish the correct and official term is Estadounidense precisely because is specific. I've seen other languages reference English instead (アメリカ in Japanese for example) probably because they thought that's what that country preferred to be called but I wonder if other languages have specific names for USA as well.

To be fair, it could be that Spanish places a special emphasis on it due to political/colonial historical scars which are sometimes unknown to the rest of the world so that's fair too.

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postgarf
@postgarf

I think we had that with Usonian but some people really do not like that and I am not very certain as to why. it's how Esperanto refers to "Americans" (la usonanoj) and I think it makes a lot more sense and is less ambiguous and so on, which is why I use it :eggbug-uwu:

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alfwynn
@alfwynn

I think people are very averse to change, and are very not used to the idea of the word.

Many Americans aren’t linguisticlaly inclined either, and may have trouble understanding:

  1. Why ‘American’ is seen as problematic.
  2. The logic behind the word ‘Usonian,’ unless thoroughly explained.
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alfwynn
@alfwynn

Could I hear a complexity level of 10? If not— I get it, I just thought I’d ask

(For the record: My personal, anecdotal experience with people and linguistic topics is based in New York State.)

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alfwynn
@alfwynn

Thank you for hearing my request out. Based on this sample text I’m not sure how much I’d understand. Some parts are particularly comprehensible to me and some are not. Since it may be lost on me, I don’t want to trouble you.

If you do decide to go through with it though, I’d still read it

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postgarf
@postgarf

the term Usonia was popularized by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and Usonian is predominantly used to refer to his style of architecture that blends in and compliments the natural landscape.
have never heard of usayian before, but I feel like it could be kind of weird to read for people who don't know anime and don't know how to pronounce sayian, but that's a minor criticism

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ertchin
@ertchin

I am guilty of doing this sort of in reverse. I'll start to refer to something as "American", think to myself "well no, it's not just the United States that does this", but still reach for "Western" as though going too broad is any better than going too narrow.

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