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→"Native American" vs. "native American": Explanation of edit, proposal for new wording.
: So what's the difference? And if you think that there was a punctuation error, why didn't you just correct the punctuation? Please don't just remove the sentence. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 01:36, 26 May 2007 (EDT)
: So what's the difference? And if you think that there was a punctuation error, why didn't you just correct the punctuation? Please don't just remove the sentence. [[User:RSchlafly|RSchlafly]] 01:36, 26 May 2007 (EDT)
::Sorry - I did a quick edit when I should have explained and discussed it here first. Let me explain. As you know, "Native American" refers to an American Indian, whereas "native American" refers to someone who was born here. (As opposed to "naturalized American", which refers to someone who was born elsewhere but has become a citizen here - like Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example). I think the context in which "Native American" or "native American" is used is usually enough to differentiate them (especially because almost everyone who is Native American would also be native American). If the context is not clear, one can always use "native-born American" instead of "native American", or "American Indian" instead of "Native American". The original sentence in the article was ''"Furthermore, the term Native American literally means anyone who was born in American as an American, so it can also be used by any American who wants to distinguish himself from an American immigrant."'' This sentence, as written, didn't make any sense to me, because I read it literally - that is, I read it to mean that any native-born American could call themselves a "Native American", with a capital N. Now I see that's perhaps not what was meant by the original sentence. Of course anyone can call themselves anything they want, but since "Native American" (with a cap N) generally isn't used to mean "native-born American", I thought (based on my original reading of it) the sentence didn't really add anything useful to the article and was confusing. That's why I took it out - I didn't think the sentence would make sense if I changed the cap N to a lower case N. However, since you put it back in, I assume you think it's important to the article to explain the two terms, and I can see that makes a certain amount of sense. If we're going to include information about the term "native American", then I think the sentence needs a bit of tweaking. How about ''The term "Native American", with a capital N, should not be confused with the phrase "native American", with a lower-case N. The term "native American" or "native-born American" refers to an American who was born in America, as opposed to a "naturalized American", who was born elsewhere but has become a citizen of America. '' What do you think? I welcome your input - let's work together to make this the best it can be.--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 09:46, 26 May 2007 (EDT)