I love this "Ode to American English," and in fact sent it to my friends Ann and Chiara, who are both living abroad right now, far from the jukebox jive-talking whiz-bang hum of U.S. slang.
Unrelated: Can I just say that I hate it when Internet users (and no one actually SAYS this, they only POST it) refer to Americans as "US-ians" or "USA-ians." I mean, I guess I get that you're trying to make some deeply relevant statement about how we hijacked the name America and there are two continents full of people who legitimately could be called Americans also, blah blah blah, and I'm as liberal as the next blue stater, and yay, other countries but come on already!
This just makes the poster sound unbelievably pretentious and makes me roll my eyes. It's right up there with those people who refer to their husbands online as "DH" for "darling husband," or who use a screen name like "Ashleigh'sMommy."
It also would completely wreck such great song lyrics as "Knockin' me out with those American thighs" and "Dancin' with the ex-lead singer of the Clash, guns on the bar and his hands on your American ass."
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When I was expecting, I lurked on a few mommy message boards. It took me a while to figure out what all the dh/dd/ds stuff was. Seriously, how long does it take to type 'husband'? I'll even take 'hubby' or 'hubs' if you're into brievity. Either is less twee than the 'dh' thing.
I was afraid that's what "DH" stood for, but I was even more afraid to investigate. [shudder]
Even worse? G-pa. So frickin' awful. Those acronyms and shorthand expressions are painful, and the usernames...yeah, still hurting.
I've never seen USian, but I have to agree, it is pretty stupid.
I read this (academic) book (by American authors) about the global dominance of Hollywood, and they kept referring to stuff as "Yanqui" instead of "American," which is about 99x more annoying than USian.
Also, it is not that hard to avoid the "American" thing. I usually just say "US" (i.e. "The US company tried to drive out local competitors.") if I'm being adjectival or some formulation like "people from the United States," which is long, but still more precise than "American," but without drawing attention to how totally awesomely correct I am.
There is definitely a difference between American English and Canadian English (and UK English). Three separate dialects.
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