no, you were wrong. you said:

which implies that's the only form. it isn't. at all. its adoption varies but other forms are actually more prevalent in several instances, probably most. spanish language academy, for instance, expressly states that "americano" in lieu of "estadounidense" is incorrect, and should not be used. that's a board of over 40 phylologists and i'd say they have a point. of course if you disagree (or think they're just being arrogant), you can go argue with them.

wrong again. see above.

i didn't. i'm speaking for my personal experience. it's obviously different from yours.

oh, did i? come on, i just played your words, why so stiff?

the "offensive word" ((c) monkeyzoo) has different penetration. it is more common in germany as in spain, more common in casual speech as formal, written or media, and it was also more common some decades ago. i guess it depends on the context but fact is it isn't at all universal, so ...

yes, but since english has become a de-facto common language on the internet, which is a good thing for us all, the scope is significantly broader, and there is no actual consensus on the meaning of 'american' in that context.

it's indeed the case, at least for the languages i cited. monkeyzoo (not 'others', he's the only one making this incorrect statement) is actually wrong and you can check that easily out.

dunno. are you sure there isn't? anyway, what if i tell you that people in several countries call themselves "americanos" too? will you then spot the basic contradiction?

absolutely not. i just pointed out a fact. i had no idea it would have such an impact. but i've been moded troll (wow!) and even had someone declare me his "foe" (lolololol). this wasn't expected but i have to say i do find this fortuitous trolling incident quite funny.

it's still silly and incorrect, but i do understand it is difficult to overcome cultural impregnation even if it's wrong. every language and variation has plenty of those, anyway. i have really no hard stance in this and realize it will not be easy to come along on such, er ... sensible? matters. thank you for your time and informative comments, anyway!

thank you, so it logically follows that "american" should apply to what? thank you for demonstrating my point.

same as you, apparently!

not at all. you can call yourselves whatever you like. i'm just pointing out it is incorrect.

sorry? don0t get what's your problem here.

you're wrong.

in spanish "estadounidense" is the official term, while "norteamericano" is also used, and ocassionally "americano" but you will never hear that in the media. portugese also say "estadunidense".

in german it's "Nordamerikaner", "Amerikaner" and "US-amerikanisch" can also be heard. french indeed say "étasunien" and "américain". italian say either "nordamericano" or simply "americano"

it seems you can go just about anywhere in the world and still not learn anything from it.

which is the "offensive" word, btw? (not that i'm wanting to use it, just curious :D)

it's still silly. what's wrong with "north americans"? "south americans" seems accepted too.

i meant appropiaton in a linguistic sense. in the end it might just be you just have a silly name for your country, i admit that "united staters" or "usians" sounds weird (though that's exactly how you are referred to in most european languages), but that's no reason to disregard the meaning of a reference for all people in america to the point to, ... yes, appropiate it. or else, how would you actually refer properly to that group (assuming you wanted to)? you could'nt, you'd have to use a periphrase because you gave an arbitrary meaning to the only word that would make sense.

there are examples of the opposite. people in canary islands, for example, refer to themselves as "canarios", not "spanish". that makes sense, however, because the term isn't inaccurate.

can you remember any other instance where the name of a whole continent is appropriated by a single country as "nationality"? thought so. you should be able to understand how nonsensical this looks from anywhere outside united states. i know that this is customary in the states, but you guys should also note that this is the internets where you are being read.

it's called "professional politicians" and happens all over the world (where there's some sort of elections, that is)

quoted from the wiki (emphasis mine):

and who would give a fuck about the cia's world factbook (besides some really stubborn usian :D)

if you don't mind, i will continue to use "american" as related to anything in "america", even though "america" doesn't mean what you think it means.

"dialect" is a term used for arbitrary classification. there is absolutely no linguistic difference between what you call a "language" and a "dialect", both are the exact same thing.

language fragmentation is inherent to geographic distribution. there is no such thing as "proper english" unless maybe you are referring to a particular form of english dominant in england at a given time, which is a pretty useless definition in the current world.

dominant languages today have become such through military/economic/cultural expansion, and expansion naturally implies fragmentation. there is no more "english" to speak of, but "englishes" or whatever the plural of english would be in your particular english.

if old versions of chrome become a security concern it's google's responsibility to either provide a fixes or at least effectively warn users, period. has nothing to do with any aspect of any os chrome happens to run on.

it's much like you say but i see no conflict, really. google can have its way, and debian (ben) is just being consistent with being debian. users can have their pick so no problem. responsibility is still clearly outlined and any rogue chrome versions causing havoc will be chrome's fault, regardless of kernel. so google should at least inform the user that they dropped support for platform x so he could pick a different browser. they have done so in the past.

i made this reflection because of you mentioning "security concerns", but i don't know of any in this context. i understand now that tsync allows for cleaner implementation of sandboxing, but if you deliver a sandboxed browser for a platform you better make sure it's indeed properly sandboxed with the api available for that platform at that moment. IF chrome had known security issues with that then debian, being debian, should of course hold it back.

lol.

no. never. really?

freaky idea anyway, can't say i don't like it.

ubuntu has always been linux for casual users.

well, the initial motto was "linux for human beings" but, well, it's just a catchy motto.

now if you consider what it really means to be "an operating system for casual users" you realize that ubuntu is not at all far from windows or macos on that level, don't expect too much. however, it's free, and it's an entrypoint to more advanced distros. it's still not irrelevant.

yes, it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
you fail to understand the single point of failure issues with ms components in general, not just ie. ie is just an example of having such vulnerable crap open to external access.

granted, i don't know if this still exists in windows 8. i very much guess so, but i don't really care. if you use windows, you should.