4 ms·

As a European in south America, I have noticed that no one from the US says "America" when asked where they are from, they will say the state mostly or the US.

As a European in south America, I have noticed that no one from the US says "America" when asked where they are from, they will say the state mostly or the US. Latin Americans will use America/Americas interchanagebly Europeans aremost likely to refer to the US as "america" one

pluma 10y ago
I didn't argue that "America" always means "USA". I said "America" is ambiguous whereas "Americas" is not. There is no benefit in changing it from "Americas", quite to the contrary: it will confuse readers who equate "America" with "USA". As you're making it sound as if "America = USA" is a European thing, here are some English-language Google results: South Africa: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aza https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aza Australia: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aau https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aau New Zealand: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Anz https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Anz The majority of results either specifically mention North/South America by name or use "America" to refer to the US. Additionally there are of course various results for US-based or US-centric organisations with "America" as part of their name: Bank of America, American Airlines and of course "Au Pair in America" (which offers au pair jobs in the US). So while someone from the US may say they're "from the US" rather than "from America", it seems like most English speakers outside the Americas mean the US when they say "America" with no qualifier. Heck, even Wikipedia acknowledges this: "However, without a clarifying context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_of_the_Americas) In other words: if you want to explicitly talk about the entire geographical area of both North and South America, just say "Americas" so you don't confuse anyone (even if it may hurt some people's feelings by making it apparent that "America" is ambiguous).
- mc32 10y ago
  New Yorker is ambiguous. Could be someone from specifically NYC or someone from Buffalo. South African can be ambiguous. There are lots of cases of this. The official name for Mexico is the united states of Mexico but only the last part is used in daily usage. Same with united states of America. Or the united Arab emirates. It's common and no big deal. People who argue the case are arguing cross linguistically to make some weird point about their language use and how they expect English to follow similar rules.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > The official name for Mexico is the united states of Mexico No, the official English name (and the most accurate translation of the official Spanish name) is United Mexican States. Its Estados Unidos Mexicanos, not Estados Unidos de México.
    - mc32 10y ago
      It's doubly funny when Mexicans and other latin americans use the term North Americans to mean people from either the US and Canada and not so much Mexico, even if mexico is in the continent of North America, geographically.

pluma 10y ago

I didn't argue that "America" always means "USA". I said "America" is ambiguous whereas "Americas" is not. There is no benefit in changing it from "Americas", quite to the contrary: it will confuse readers who equate "America" with "USA". As you're making it sound as if "America = USA" is a European thing, here are some English-language Google results: South Africa: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aza https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aza Australia: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aau https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Aau New Zealand: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Anz https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=america+site%3Anz The majority of results either specifically mention North/South America by name or use "America" to refer to the US. Additionally there are of course various results for US-based or US-centric organisations with "America" as part of their name: Bank of America, American Airlines and of course "Au Pair in America" (which offers au pair jobs in the US). So while someone from the US may say they're "from the US" rather than "from America", it seems like most English speakers outside the Americas mean the US when they say "America" with no qualifier. Heck, even Wikipedia acknowledges this: "However, without a clarifying context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_of_the_Americas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_of_the_Americas) In other words: if you want to explicitly talk about the entire geographical area of both North and South America, just say "Americas" so you don't confuse anyone (even if it may hurt some people's feelings by making it apparent that "America" is ambiguous).

mc32 10y ago
New Yorker is ambiguous. Could be someone from specifically NYC or someone from Buffalo. South African can be ambiguous. There are lots of cases of this. The official name for Mexico is the united states of Mexico but only the last part is used in daily usage. Same with united states of America. Or the united Arab emirates. It's common and no big deal. People who argue the case are arguing cross linguistically to make some weird point about their language use and how they expect English to follow similar rules.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > The official name for Mexico is the united states of Mexico No, the official English name (and the most accurate translation of the official Spanish name) is United Mexican States. Its Estados Unidos Mexicanos, not Estados Unidos de México.
  - mc32 10y ago
    It's doubly funny when Mexicans and other latin americans use the term North Americans to mean people from either the US and Canada and not so much Mexico, even if mexico is in the continent of North America, geographically.