#in case you couldn't tell I went up a dose on Vivance lmao

[conkreetmonkey]

I have a weird, muddy opinion on how people on this site call The United States of America "USAmerica." Yeah, it works, and it removes any confusion about whether you're talking about the country or the landmass, but at the same time, it feels clunky? USAmerica just feels... idk, it's like you couldn't say it out loud without sounding goofy? You can say "the USA" out loud and it sounds good and makes sense, but at the same time the "the" makes it a bit awkward gramatically, and you can't just say "I'm from USA," but you can say, in text form, "I'm from USAmerica."

THEN there's the fact that people from that country are typically referred to as "Americans," and things from there as "American." When someone says "America," you don't think about the two connected continents the term could technically be referring to, you just think about the United States of America. It's an unusually "built" country within the region, made up of 51 smaller, unified nation-states that have combined into one very large, culturally and geographically disjointed country under one sprawling government, where every state, now functionally more of a province, retains the ability to have differing laws and economic policies, yet must answer to the grand government that controls them all as a whole, like if every country in Europe was ruled by one overseeing organization but were free to remain distinct as mini-nations rather than homogenized provinces. Two USAmerican states are far more different in legislation and culture than, say, two Canadian provinces are.

Given this, it makes sense for the country to simply be named "The United States of America." It's a bunch of states from America that are united into one big Voltron of a nation. Of course, though, you can't just say something like "this book is a great work of United States of America-ian literature," due to the way the English language works. Within the framework of English grammar, ideally, a country needs an adjective form of its name to concisely describe people and things from there, and while there are no hard rules as to how to go about that to my knowledge, there are a few different ways. You can apply a prefix to the country's name such as "ish" (British, Scottish, Turkish), "ian" (Brazillian, Russian, Indian), "ese" (Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese), "i" (Pakistani, Somali, Yemeni), or "an" (Guatemalan, German, Mexican), or if it sounds good you can just get funky with it and change a vowel or two (Norse, French, Dutch, Malagasy). And then there's Iceland with the "ic" (because they're special).

So BASICALLY, from THAT standpoint, using "American" as the USA's adjective makes sense. It flows well, does what it needs to. The problem, of course, is the overlap with the name of the landmasses. Technically, when one says "South American," they could be referring to either the continent of South America, or the south of the USA. Same with "North American." Now, nobody actually uses either of those terms to describe regions of the country, probably due to this overlap. A USAmerican could simply say "I'm from the north" or "I'm from a southern state," and you would understand given the context of them being a USAmerican. But then again, they couldn't just simply drop the country and compass-ional (whatever tf the term is) region in the same clause like people from any other country could without it sounding weird. "I'm from South France" makes sense as a sentence, as does "This plant grows in Northern Australia." "I was born in the South of the United States of America" is clunky and overly verbose, yet the lack of a proper country name without a "the" throws a wrench into that.

So what do we (typically) do? Just say "American" and let context do the work, clarifying if neccesary. "I'm from Southern America" obviously is not intended to apply to the continents, although it technically could. The reader, simply due to the context of knowing that South America is a continent and "America" usually refers to the USA unless otherwise stated, understands that the writer almost certainly means they're from a place like Texas or Louisiana, rather than Argentina or Chile. This way of writing/speaking is imprecise and requires unspoken context, but it gets the job done. America the country is a weird case in terms of its makeup, and that's reflected in its name. You're not referring to one country, you're referring to 51 micro-nations held together with one big fat federal government spread over them, like the thick plastic wrap holding a pallet of crates, boxes and sacks together as one shippable unit. And besides, nobody ever says "America" to refer to both continents, even though they technically could. They say "The Americas," because while technically one region, NA and SA are both very distinct and barely physically connected at all, held together by a single small landbridge (that has a canal though it now anyways, so you can't walk from one continent to the other without crossing water anymore).

So, in conclusion, idk, the term "USAmerica" removes the needless complexity of situational context, but it's somehow clunkier-feeling than the preexisting norm of just saying "America." I use and will continue to use the term USAmerica for brevity's sake since it's the norm on this site, but I'd certainly never use it anywhere else. America is an unusual country, and its name reflects that. A square peg in a language made of round holes, that can still fit if you turn it sideways a little. idk. I suppose the only real lesson here is that a) American exceptionalism is unintentionally portrayed in the language the country speaks, and b) English has a weird grammar system where things that are objectively correct within it sometimes don't "feel right" for no reason other than lacking succinctness.

[nuzipilled]

So everyone in your human AU who has a "robot" name in vanilla has been given a "normal" name except Uzi, which to my knowledge isn't a usual name to see (?). Apparently it is an obscure Hebrew name, but it's rarely used, and your Uzi is of Indian heritage, so her parents probably weren't Jewish (although it is a valid possibility, I just feel like you'd have established that by now if so lol. I could totally see a Jewish Uzi). Then again, "Doorman" also isn't an Indian name, but it still feels like something you wouldn't look twice at if you read it in the credits of a film, you know?

So, yet another nitpicky question asked in good faith out of genuine curiosity, because I am sincerely invested in this AU: why is Uzi named that? Were her parents just especially creative, or somehow connected to Jewish culture? Was she named after the gun? Is it perhaps more of a nickname that stuck, or a shortened version of something else? There are a lot of possibilities here.

Additionally, second tangentially related question: I'm assuming your Uzi was born and raised in America based on the flag in her ref image, but were her parents, or grandparents? What Indian ethnicity/culture(s) does her family identify with, if any, and does she speak any of the 22 Indian languages? Or is she just genetically of Indian descent, with no real connection to any specific "heritage?" (ik being Indian isn't a very big part of her character so you maybe haven't written all this out, and that's cool if so. India just has a lot of cultures in it. It's a very diverse and interesting country. I didn't even know they had 22 languages until I looked it up for this ask, lol. Like, 22 languages?? In one country?? What??)

Man, that turned into like 5 questions, lol. Sorry. In case you couldn't tell, I'm really into your AU right now, lmao. (Also I just went up a dose on Vivance and it's hitting me like a train and I'm chattering like a parrot at anyone who crosses my field of vision lmaooo)

Ok about Uzi, so funny enought we HAVE written about her "heritage", America born, she has little to no connection, genetic ties is basically all, speaks English and some very sparce Russian. But she does cook and likes dabbling and looking up stuff from her heritage but it's not particularly important or close to her.

And this stems from her mum Nori, who is alive in this AU, but due to events that we will talk about when we get to show off Nori, she also has very little cultural heritage and also does not speak any of the Indian languages but she WAS born in India.

Uzi's name is because Nori is weird and likes guns, the Doorman name comes from Khan, American born, who is a Korean / white American something.

🦘