The use of the word "liberal" in the US drove me nuts the first few months I lived in the US. I used to be identify myself as a "Liberal" in Germany and constantly felt misrepresented when people were talking about "liberals" in the US. Weird enough the term that comes closest to what I understand as European liberalism is libertarianism. So we had to throw in a syllable to make up for the word that's being used everywhere else having been hijacked. I wonder if some of this is fallout from the insane two party system.