Quote Originally Posted by James MacMillan View Post
Total agreement.

A Canadian is an American! A Mexican is an American!

You can't even change to the term United States either, because several countries are also that - - like the official title of Mexico is the United States of Mexico.....

So what are we? We could always just say borish yankee gringo..... nobody would mis-understand that one....
I'm gonna disagree here. Mostly. Sort of.

I think it is entirely acceptable to use the word "American" to refer to people from the USA. I don't see how shortening North America to America is any better than shortening United States of America to America.

And let's be honest, if you go to the other side of the world and say "I'm an American" unless you have a thick Canadian accent, people will think you are from the USA.

And not all of America is states. Puerto Rico for example. That's also why the "Made in America" label doesn't always mean it was made in the states.

When I hear people complaining about this, I always wonder why they don't apply these same ideas to other countries. I don't hear them complaining about Germany, even though all the people in that region are German, not just the ones in that country. And are we going to refer to the Chinese as people's republicans? Not likely.

The worst is when I have heard "but you're robbing them of their identity" to which I can't help but reply "And what the hell do you think you're doing?!"


Anyway. I think it's a bit silly to refuse just because the factory is in Canada. But then again, keeping money pumping into the American economy may be as important to them as avoiding sweatshop labor.

Personally I would have just gone with the Canadian factory. Then again, I also wouldn't have a problem with them setting up factories in 3rd world countries, as long as they had competent employees with decent working conditions and wages. Cambodians need jobs too.