Look, the Founding Fathers fucked us (USA) over. I know they had their reasons, like trying to unite thirteen little fiefdoms into a mutual defense collective or whatever, but the name is just stupid.
- United States --> Not a unique identifier. Snuggled up to our southern border is the United States of Mexico, FFS. In my almost daily desire to refer to my nation and its citizens with a name less than nine fucking syllables long, I often say "US" or "united states," but I have to pay attention to context because we can't always assume we're the only, or even the first, political entity to come to mind.
- America --> Much has been made of this. There are almost two dozen nations in America. From one point of view, what makes the USA unique among them is that, unlike everyone else, we don't have a unique name.
- The, of --> OK, now I'm just being silly, but what if we just called ourselves "of?" Even worse, probably.
Imagine your parents named you Human Person. You might be criticized for being a pompous ass every time you referred to yourself. "You're not the ONLY human!" "There are many more people than just you!" What do you call your stuff? Your accomplishments? Your home? Human's stuff? Person's home? Hey, doofus, you're not the only human! How dare you continue to imply that you are?! A nonspecific name is a problem.
I'm not going to say we're not a problem in much bigger ways (gesturing vaguely all around me). I'm just focusing on this one, right now. It's not really USAmericans' fault; our parents did this to us. The only way we can refer to our nation or our national identity with any specificity is the entire name: The United States Of America. And what's the fuckin' adjective for that? Hi, I'm Guyjantic, a Unitedstatesofamerican citizen.
We've known about this problem for over 200 years. In the early 1800s there was an attempt to rename the nation Fredonia. Sure. Why not? There were also proposals for the Federal Republic of America (probably not much of an improvement) or Columbia (which would have made things confusing with Colombia, but whatever).
We have a stupid name.
#usa #names #geography #cartography