h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Nowadays, a person is a resident of America, not Ohio or Virginia or Vermont as they might have considered themselves once."

I agree with this thought, but as an American, I would express it differently.

Its hard for me to speak for a person who might reside in The USA, but is not a citizen. Certainly, to a person from any other country, I would identify myself as a US Citizen, not as a "resident of America." The term "resident", in The USA, implies very much a specific place of residence, which still means a lot to an American.

Regional differences in American cultural identity have eroded in my lifetime, but they are still strong. For example, regional accents are less pronounced than they once were, but are still quite discernable. Usually I can tell whether you're from Pittsbrgh or from Philadelphia. We all still cheer loudly when any public speaker mentions our town or state or region in a speech.

An American is still a resident of his particular state or commonwealth (In my case, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania - the Keystone State.) We pay taxes to the State Government where we reside as well as to the Federal Government (mostly to the Federal Government.) But increasingly, our overarching identity is American.

As an American and a US citizen, I would express the authors point as follows;

"Nowadays, a person is a citizen of the United States of America, not Ohio or Virginia or Vermont as they might have considered themselves once."

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Hi. I wrote this entry. Thanks for responding.

"For example, regional accents are less pronounced than they once were, but are still quite discernable."

Actually, I wrote a project on h2g2 about this topic. There's a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania named William Labov who claims that regional dialects are actually strengthening and becoming more distinct, but that *local* dialects are fading away. So, the Pittsburgh accent is losing strength, but the more bland "Midwestern" accent is strengthening.

The word citizen doesn't work there for me, because it is a technical term. I live in Ohio, but I would feel silly saying "I'm a citizen of Ohio", because there is a specific definition to citizenship and it refers to my citizenship in the US. Therefore, I think that the term "resident" says more about the point I'm trying to make, because there are other reasons why a person isn't a citizen of a state, rather than just the erosion of regional or state identity.

Thanks for commenting