| 单词 | Native American |
| 例句 | Native American nounUSAGE Native American The term Native American proliferated in the 1970s to denote groups served by the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs: American Indians as well as the Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska. Later, the term was interpreted as including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and it fell into disfavor among some Indian and Alaskan groups, who came to prefer American Indian and Alaska Native. Yet views are unpredictable: some consider Native American more respectful than American Indian. As an equivalent to American Indian, the phrase Native American was long thought to be a twentieth-century innovation. In fact, the phrase Native American —though it came into vogue in the early and mid-1970s—dates back to at least 1737 in this sense. And it made literal sense (for the most part) in 1737, since at that time most people who had been born in the New World were indigenous—not of European descent. By the nineteenth century, when the phrase native American (lowercase n-) was fairly common, it had become ambiguous, since it often referred to any person born in the United States, whether of indigenous or of European descent. Here, in a mid-twentieth-century passage, it refers to place of birth: “Dr. Flesch. .. was born in Vienna, but writes more like a native American than do most native Americans; in fact, he teaches the natives how to write like natives; it is always amazing to recall that he came to America as lately as the 1930's.” (Gorham Munson, The Written Word, rev. ed.; 1949.) The phrase indigenous American, which is a more logical and etymologically correct way of referring to an American Indian, does have some support—e.g.: “Hundreds of high schools and colleges have dropped their Indian symbols over the past 30 years as many indigenous American groups and their members have called for sports teams to drop the names.” ( J. News [Westchester Co., NY]; June 3, 2002.) Meanwhile, the synonymous phrase autochthonous American hasn't ever caught on. No surprise there.Usage notes show additional guidance on finer points of English usage. |
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