[Paul-W]

Hyphenation isn’t required- it’s not a big deal one way or another around here, and so nobody minds. When we say we’re ‘something-American’ (and it’s not all the time!) it’s just because in the given situation it might seem important to let somebody know your heritage. I think if you aren’t around it all the time you might just think it’s weird or not be used to it. Also, the word order in this case matters. In most cases ‘American’ *should* come second. If you say you’re an ‘Irish American’, it’s emphasizing the ‘American’ part. You’re saying what *kind* of American you are. If instead you said you’re ‘American Irish’, you’d be saying what kind of Irishman you are. This is my understanding having been around it all the time. If you say I’m an ‘Irish American person’, it’s like saying ‘chunky peanut butter sandwich’. You wouldn’t say ‘peanut butter chunky sandwich’. Chunky is just the *type* of peanut butter, but peanut butter is the type of sandwich. It’s just a language thing. It doen’t seem to make sense to put ‘American’ first unless you’re an American living in another country. Most of the time if you say you’re ‘American’ (just the single word), it can mean a couple different things. Maybe you’re 1st generation, maybe you’re multiracial, maybe you have roots to the Revolutionary war, maybe you don’t know your immigrant roots, etc.. So it’s just about being clear and wat you want to say.

User Detail :  

Name : Paul-W, Gender : M, Age : 21, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Social class : Middle class, 

[Author]

Posts