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Intersting. In Brazil we argue that the US isn't America. Great to know that Brazil was first called America, not the US :)
by meiraleal 2y ago
Intersting. In Brazil we argue that the US isn't America. Great to know that Brazil was first called America, not the US :)
- samatman 2y agoThe USA, you mean?
- meiraleal 2y agoNobody would be taken seriously calling the US "America" in South America.
- bentley 2y agoThe source of this terminology difference is that continents have no universal definition, only societal convention. Romance language–speaking countries tend to teach the six‐continent model with a single America, whereas Anglophone countries like the UK, Australia, and USA teach the seven‐continent model with North and South America. Neither side is wrong, since there’s no universally agreed upon idea of what the continents are, only convention (and neither convention matches the current geological consensus either). The equivalent term to Spanish “America” in English is “the Americas,” not “America.” My Brazilian friends consider themselves “American,” but I’ve never met a Canadian who did.
- gerdesj 2y agoThat's fine. You have your terminology and others have theirs. It might (not) surprise you to learn that what I call Cyprus is called "Zypern" by Germans and there are a lot more copper related names for the place. Closer to my home, what I call London is Londres in France and London in German. The city in question was named by a bunch of what would become Italians (Romans) - Londinium was named by a murderous bunch of colonial invaders. I have insinuated an awful lot from your comment and "replied" to those insinuations as best I can. I am somebody and I use the term America routinely to describe the USA and the term Americas for the entire continent. North America is US + CA and Southern America is Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay and ... oh there are rather a lot more. There is also Central America which is the countries that join the north to the south. I get that you have an axe to grind about which America is which and who owns which name. I have some sympathy for Brazil getting pissed off about Amazon (the company) too. I try to understand all points of view - its quite interesting.
- meiraleal 2y ago> I have some sympathy for Brazil getting pissed off about Amazon (the company) too. I never met a Brazilian that cares about it tho. There was a big national uproar a few decades ago when some Japanese company tried to patent the use of the Açaí fruit and trademark. now about America and Americans. South Americans and North Americans are as much "Americans" as Northern and Southern Europeans are Europeans. Calling themselves THE Americans and the rest latinos (what do they call Canadians? I guess just Canadians) lowers our history and culture. North-Americans or US-Americans or whatever-Americans shouldn't be the ones defining who is American, who is Latino-American, who is Native-American, Afro-American. Not surprising, there isn't a Euro-American tag.
- shiroiushi 2y ago>Calling themselves THE Americans and the rest latinos "Latinos" are what Spanish and (to a much lesser extent) Portuguese-speaking people living in the USA call themselves (and their relatives still living in other Latin-American countries). They seem to prefer it to "Hispanics". And the term only applies to people speaking Latin-derived languages (i.e., Spanish and Portuguese). So the people living in Belize, for instance, are not "Latinos" at all. Similarly, African-Americans were named that way by themselves, to distinguish themselves from the majority white Americans, since they had a very different and unique culture and history. It wasn't some kind of pejorative they were stuck with by outsiders; they came up with it on their own because they were tired of being called "negroes", "colored", or much worse. You seem to have a very warped perception of who thinks what, and as the other poster said, you obviously have an ax to grind. People in the USA are called "Americans" because it's (part of) the name of their country, and there's no other convenient and pronounceable demonym to describe them, and there's no other country in the world that has the word "America" in it.
- jaimebuelta 2y agoAccording to surveys, most people in the US prefer to refer themselves as “Hispanic”, though there’s a generational change https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/09/12/u-s-hispanics-preferences-among-pan-ethnic-terms/ https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/09/12/u-...
- samatman 2y agoThe name of our country is the United States of America. Sometimes we call it the US, or United States, sometimes we call it America. Much as yours is called la República Federativa do Brasil, which you call Brasil for short. Do you ever call it the RF I wonder? Real question, I have no idea. Whatever you call America, the country, in your language, that's up to you. The Chinese call us 美國, the few of us aware of that are not even slightly bothered by it. Your language, your rules. You have no right, and no ability, to dictate to Americans how we refer to ourselves and our nation, in our main (but not official) language. We do not care what your name for us is, and we do not care at all what you think about how we refer to ourselves. For the record, in America we do not think of the Americas as one continent, but rather, two. So Brazilians, as we style you, are South American. Canadians, Mexicans, and Americans, are North Americans. If we need for some reason to refer to the people of both continents we might say "people of the Americas" but this doesn't come up much, just as we might say "Old Worlders" to refer to the megacontinent of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The chip you carry around on your shoulder does you no credit at all. The notion that because we use a word in the name of our nation to refer to ourselves in some way denigrates the other inhabitants of the two continents, North and South America, which happen to share that word with the name of our nation... That is 100% a you problem, not an us problem, and not a US problem. Get over it. Or don't.
- philwelch 2y agoBrazil? Do you mean the Federative Republic?
- jecel 2y agoNote that the country's full name has been "República Federativa do Brasil" only since 1968. Between 1889 and 1967 it was "Estados Unidos do Brasil". https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estados_Unidos_do_Brasil https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estados_Unidos_do_Brasil
- jandrewrogers 2y ago"America" is the only name the country has. Other countries are also called "United States of $FOO", so the USA does not own title to "United States" in the same way no one owns "Democratic Republic" as the name of their country. Regardless, in most languages and countries, it is just "America" so that ship has sailed. Either way, America or United States, everyone knows which country is being referenced.
- jltsiren 2y agoThe name of the country seems to be the equivalent of either "United States" or "United States of America" in pretty much every language I can read. "America" is an informal name people usually understand, much in the same way they understand when you call the UK "England".
- yulker 2y agoEngland is not the UK.
- arethuza 2y agoI think that's the point?
- dleary 2y agoCalling the UK “England” is a different class of error, though. England is a part of the UK. Analogous would be calling the USA “Texas”. Calling the UK “Britain” is a much more direct comparison. United States of America -> America United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland -> Britain
- rgblambda 2y agoIt's not helped when England, Britain and United Kingdom have been viewed as interchangeable terms by UK politicians, famous writers and the general public. Boris Johnson: "If I am ever asked on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am, when I have done nothing wrong and am simply ambling along and breathing God’s fresh air like any other freeborn Englishman..." Rupert Brooke: "If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England."
- cyberax 2y agoThere are two countries with the words "United States" in the name: the USA and Mexico. There is only one country with the word "America" in it. So "America" as an informal name for the USA is appropriate.
- sbassi 2y agoit is not appropriate for non-US people since the name "America" clash with how they name the continent (America), so they believe that Americans are "stealing" the name of the continent for themselves. While Americans don't think so because they don't even think there is such a continent, there are 2 continents for them.
- SllX 2y agoAs an American, I believe continents are a useless fiction that don’t properly account for how land is actually divided on the crust of the Earth and disregards small continental areas which ought to be accounted for if we’re to believe Europe and Asia are different continents. There are also two different six continent models taught in the world in addition to the seven continent model I was taught: Europe and Asia as Eurasia and North and South America as the Americas. Personally I don’t care what you call us in other languages, but in English it’s just “Americans”.
- Izkata 2y ago> since the name "America" clash with how they name the continent (America) There are two continents, "North America" and "South America". To refer to the whole, you pluralize it as "the Americas".
- mkl 2y agoThe number of continents and their names vary between cultures and languages. In Latin America, the Americas are considered a single continent called America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number
- jjtheblunt 2y agoi'm from the united states of america, mid 50s, and i always thought it's pretty random "america" implies the united states too.
- adastra22 2y agoLiterally the only country with “America” in its name tho.
- jjtheblunt 2y agogood point