5 ms·
Isn't Brazil in America?
by mic47 9y ago
Isn't Brazil in America?
- grzm 9y agoAmerica is a commonly-used short form for the United States of America, as it is in this case. (Edit to add: Actually, it's even more specific than that: American is the commonly accepted demonym for citizens of the United States, which is how it's used here.) To refer to the landmasses including North and South America, the term the Americas is typically used.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- raverbashing 9y agoSo maybe now can understand the undertone of the famous phrase "America for the Americans" of the Monroe Doctrine
- cdnh22 9y agoThe funny thing about it, is that at the time the name "United States of America" came to be, "America" was the full continent and the name of the new nation simply reflected the fact that it was a union of states in that continent. I think the name "America" for the country got stronger because people from there were calling them selves "Americans" for a lack of better demonym.
- bmmayer1 9y agoHard to believe 'United Statesians' didn't get more traction :)
- cdnh22 9y agoActually, in Portuguese and Spanish there is the word "estadounidense" that is basically "Unitedstatizen". But this is a formal word, used only in books (and Wikipedia). At least in Brazil, we use "americano" in the day by day for both someone born in the USA or in the continent (which is still called "America", no plural).
- sorokod 9y ago> America is a commonly-used short form for the United States of America Perhaps someone from Americas - America can comment how common this is in their country?
- grzm 9y agoThat's certainly fair (and to be clear, when using Americas in English, the phrase is the Americas, including the definite article), though it would also be fair to restrict it to the English language, as names change depending on the the language. For example, Hungary in English is Ungarn in German (Deutsch) and Magyarország in Hungarian (Magyar). I'm not going to insist that Germans should use Hungary or Magyarország auf Deutsch. As a first approximation using Google Translate, American translates as americano in both Portuguese and Spanish, while Mexican and Brazilian, for example, translate as mexicano and brasileño (Spanish) and brasileiro (Portuguese), respectively. I didn't find a way to limit this to particular locales as would be appropriate. These types of things can be subtle, and I'm interested to hear from good sources that can provide more insight.