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This is not true, as there is no continent called ‘America’. There is only ‘North America’ and ‘South America’. American is used by people in the US because t

This is not true, as there is no continent called ‘America’. There is only ‘North America’ and ‘South America’. American is used by people in the US because the USA stands for the United States of America. Just like how the Mexicans use that term because the UMS stands for the United Mexican States. Being offended at the use of American just for people from the US is simply due to a lack of education. The term you are looking for is Pan-American.

jolmg 2y ago
[flagged]
- BuckRogers 2y ago
  /* https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/America https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/America Not all countries see North America and South America as 2 continents. Rather, they're regions of a single continent called America, like South Asia is a region of Asia. There's more to education than the US-American perspective. */ Consulting with people's opinions in the Spanish-speaking world really does not matter, because they're still wrong. The Darién Gap physically separates North and South America. There's a better argument that Eurasia is a single continent, than there is North and South America.
  - jolmg 2y ago
    Whatever your personal criteria on what a continent is, historical convention bears more weight. You yourself recognize this if, despite your criteria, you're not willing to correct other people and tell them that Europe and Asia are not continents. America was first a single continent. That's why it's not "The United States of North America" nor "The United States of the Americas". "America" in "USA" refers to the New World, like it continues to do today in the Spanish-speaking world.
    - BuckRogers 2y ago
      //America was first a single continent. Only out of ignorance of where they landed, and what it was. As we learned more this evolved, at least it did in the Anglosphere. No one was ever ignorant of the fact that Europe and Asia were one. That's a very different historical origin as to why each is divided and referred to as they are today. It would be like naming all bodies of water the Atlantic, at one point that would have been accepted. It would not only be wrong, it would also be as culturally imperialistic to do to everyone else as forcing North and South America to be 'America'. This is the first map of the New World, and at the time I would have agreed that America would have made sense. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Map_Juan_de_la_Cosa_outline_Davies_1976.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Map_Juan...
      - jolmg 2y ago
        > It would not only be wrong, it would also be as culturally imperialistic to do to everyone else as forcing North and South America to be 'America'. That logic is kind of backwards. To probably almost all of South America and a good portion of North America, their continent has been named "America" since before the U.S. was born. There isn't any forcing, since that's already how it is and always has been. If anything, from that perspective, it's the taking of the term "American" by one country to the exclusion of others and then denying the existence of the single continent from which their own name is derived what can seem "culturally imperialistic". > Only out of ignorance of where they landed, and what it was. As we learned more this evolved, at least it did in the Anglosphere. No one was ever ignorant of the fact that Europe and Asia were one. That's a very different historical origin as to why each is divided and referred to as they are today. My point was that you care about geological definitions of continents only with regards to America. With Europe and Asia, you're willing to accept their being defined as separate continents because of historical reasons. If I look up geological continents right now[1], Eurasia is a single continent and Australia and Zealandia are separate. Yet, the U.S. doesn't recognize the continents of the world like that. That's picking and choosing where you care about geology. It's kind of hypocritical. In the end, continents, at least in everyday speech, is determined a good bit more from history rather than geological features, because people identify themselves from them, and historically America has always been a single continent, at least for likely most of its inhabitants. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Geological_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Geological_continent...

jolmg 2y ago

[flagged]

BuckRogers 2y ago
/* https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/America https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/America Not all countries see North America and South America as 2 continents. Rather, they're regions of a single continent called America, like South Asia is a region of Asia. There's more to education than the US-American perspective. */ Consulting with people's opinions in the Spanish-speaking world really does not matter, because they're still wrong. The Darién Gap physically separates North and South America. There's a better argument that Eurasia is a single continent, than there is North and South America.
- jolmg 2y ago
  Whatever your personal criteria on what a continent is, historical convention bears more weight. You yourself recognize this if, despite your criteria, you're not willing to correct other people and tell them that Europe and Asia are not continents. America was first a single continent. That's why it's not "The United States of North America" nor "The United States of the Americas". "America" in "USA" refers to the New World, like it continues to do today in the Spanish-speaking world.
  - BuckRogers 2y ago
    //America was first a single continent. Only out of ignorance of where they landed, and what it was. As we learned more this evolved, at least it did in the Anglosphere. No one was ever ignorant of the fact that Europe and Asia were one. That's a very different historical origin as to why each is divided and referred to as they are today. It would be like naming all bodies of water the Atlantic, at one point that would have been accepted. It would not only be wrong, it would also be as culturally imperialistic to do to everyone else as forcing North and South America to be 'America'. This is the first map of the New World, and at the time I would have agreed that America would have made sense. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Map_Juan_de_la_Cosa_outline_Davies_1976.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Map_Juan...
    - jolmg 2y ago
      > It would not only be wrong, it would also be as culturally imperialistic to do to everyone else as forcing North and South America to be 'America'. That logic is kind of backwards. To probably almost all of South America and a good portion of North America, their continent has been named "America" since before the U.S. was born. There isn't any forcing, since that's already how it is and always has been. If anything, from that perspective, it's the taking of the term "American" by one country to the exclusion of others and then denying the existence of the single continent from which their own name is derived what can seem "culturally imperialistic". > Only out of ignorance of where they landed, and what it was. As we learned more this evolved, at least it did in the Anglosphere. No one was ever ignorant of the fact that Europe and Asia were one. That's a very different historical origin as to why each is divided and referred to as they are today. My point was that you care about geological definitions of continents only with regards to America. With Europe and Asia, you're willing to accept their being defined as separate continents because of historical reasons. If I look up geological continents right now[1], Eurasia is a single continent and Australia and Zealandia are separate. Yet, the U.S. doesn't recognize the continents of the world like that. That's picking and choosing where you care about geology. It's kind of hypocritical. In the end, continents, at least in everyday speech, is determined a good bit more from history rather than geological features, because people identify themselves from them, and historically America has always been a single continent, at least for likely most of its inhabitants. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Geological_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Geological_continent...