In observing the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding this year, we're also celebrating the debut of our nation's name. The use of "The United States of America" in the Declaration of Independence marked the first time that our country had been so designated in an official document.

But, as Bill Bryson points out in his delightful book "Made in America," the choice of that name for our nation was no slam dunk. For a full two years after the Declaration, for instance, the formal title of our country remained "the United States of NORTH America."

During the course of the Revolutionary War, we continued to refer to our homeland informally as "the colonies." In fact, the written commissions of officers in the American army referred to the "United Colonies of America." Clearly, we still missed Mommy.

As Bryson notes, one big problem with "The United States" was that it yielded no convenient adjectival form and no term for a citizen. "United Statesian" and "Usanian" were awkward and, besides, they didn't go well with "Airlines," "Express" or "Broadcasting Company."

According to Paul Dickon's fascinating book "Labels for Locals," alternative demonyms proposed over the years have included, I kid you not, "Unisian," "Uessian," "United Statesard," "United Stateser," "Unitedstatesman," "Usatian," "Usonian," "Usan," and "Us'n." (Something tells me the last one might not be serious.)

Eventually we settled, as we Yanks often do, for the easiest and most practical designation — "American" — conveniently ignoring the fact that this term also applied to every resident of the Western Hemisphere from Ellesmere Island to Tierra del Fuego.

Partly because of this ambiguity, we conscientiously conducted a substantial search for alternatives to "America." "The United States of Appalachia" ... "of Alleghania" ... and "of Fredonia" were considered, but eventually rejected, except by the Marx Brothers who used "Fredonia" as the name of a fictional nation in their movie "Duck Soup."

One popular candidate was "The United States of Columbia." By naming ourselves after Christopher Columbus, an Italian who had sailed for the Catholic Spanish, we figured we could really stick it to those Anglo-Saxon Protestant Brits.

Cooler heads prevailed, but "Columbia" still flourishes in the names of a university, a river and a state capital. And, to this day, our national capital is located in the District of Columbia.

Hey, snooty British WASPs, we're independent; deal with it!

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Photo credit: Saurav Mahto at Unsplash