> our Great National Misery is ending
Side note but, Americans take note: when you conflate "the world" with America like this, it really grinds everyone else's gears. This is an International misery.
Side note but, Americans take note: when you conflate "the world" with America like this, it really grinds everyone else's gears. This is an International misery.
Stuff like this can still happen in a highly vaccinated population within a larger, widely un-vaccinated population.
Declaring something a national misery does not preclude it from also being a global one.
To think that "my nation has less cases, all is over now for us" is to don't understand what pandemic means.
Having been born and raised in America but quite far from the USA, it grinds my gears when people try to shove that distinction down my throat.
It may be that a different language treats things differently but wishing it in English doesn’t make it so.
It’s two landmasses not one. They are connected by an isthmus.
Claiming “America” is what people call both North America and South America together in standard modern English is being pedantic. Yes it is a rarely used vestige form, but it’s very rare in modern usage. It’s like claiming Ceylon is a proper name for Sri Lanka because we have Ceylon tea and Ceylon cinnamon, etc. and it was widely used in the XIX century, or Kampuchea for Cambodia, etc.
In normal usage of modern standard English the combination of two continents in the Western Hemisphere are referred to as “The Americas”.
Moreover, a colleague in MDF confirms Americans (US to be clear) are referred to as americanos, norte americanos and less so as “estadunidense”. Gringos being rather informal.
Now, refer to French, German, Japanese, etc, and they all use a transliterated or translated version of American[1] for people from the USA.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_Stat...
Merriam-Webster's definition of landmass [0]:
"a large area of land"
Example of its usage in a sentence (also [0]):
"the islands of Ireland and Great Britain were once part of the Eurasian landmass"
So, you see, if Eurasia, including the British Isles, can be considered a landmass, surely using the Isthmus of Panama as a reason for America not being one is at least a little pedantic.
> Claiming America is what people call both North America and South America together in standard English is being pedantic.
I did no such thing. This is a strawman.
> Moreover, a colleague in MDF confirms Americans (US to be clear) are referred to as americanos, norte americanos and less so as “estadunidense”.
This is true. Americano(a) is probably the most common way to call the people from the US, closely followed by norte-americano. That doesn't mean it's not also used to reference people from the other American countries. Usually context can be used to make the distinction, or people can ask for clarification.
That said, nobody that I know refers to the USA as America over there, so this part of your argument is another strawman.
Quick side question: what's MDF in this context?
> In normal usage of modern standard English the combination of two continents in the Western Hemisphere are referred to as “The Americas”.
Perhaps. Also perhaps it's time to recognise that this can be seen as a form of cultural domination and change it.
In any case, you had said: "In the modern English language no such thing exists." and that's what I was refuting, so this is yet another strawman.
> Now, refer to French, German, Japanese, etc, and they all use a transliterated or translated version of American for people from the USA.
I have no idea why you are bringing this up as it doesn't seem to relate to the issue at hand in any way.
“ This is true. Americano(a) is probably the most common way to call the people from the US, closely followed by norte-americano. That doesn't mean it's not also used to reference people from the other American countries. Usually context can be used to make the distinction, or people can ask for clarification.”
Given that OP complained of that exact usage and moreover in English this ambiguity does not exist.
MDF: capital district of Mexico.
> It grinds the gears of many Americans when people conflate the USA with America as well though.
As you can see, I was not complaining about the usage of "Americans" but rather about the conflation of "USA" and "America".
I did say it grinds the gears of many Americans when that happens, which might be the cause of your confusion.
> MDF: capital district of Mexico.
Thanks! I did think you were not talking about medium-density fibreboard! :D
As far as I know people from the southern continent call themselves sudanericanos or alternatively sulanericanos in their native languages. Again, in English there is no confusion about what the word America refers to. It may make a difference in Brazilian or South American Spanish, but that’s their problem, not an English problem.
Perhaps not for you, but that's pretty much the main point here. :)
> As far as I know people from the southern continent call themselves sudanericanos or alternatively sulanericanos in their native languages.
Sudamericanos, latinoamericanos, sul-americanos, latino-americanos OR americanos. They all work.
> Again, in English there is no confusion about what the word America refers to.
I'm pretty sure I speak English daily, and there is definite confusion. There's also the problem that this language excludes a lot of people.
> It may make a difference in Brazilian or South American Spanish, but that’s their problem, not an English problem.
Allow me to pick a small nit: the language is Portuguese. In some contexts it may make sense to distinguish the American from the European variety but it's still mainly Portuguese in the same way that US/American English is still English. That doesn't affect the point you're making in any way, of course.
In Spanish and some other languages, America refers to the entire landmass from Alaska to Argentina.
This is equivalent to a Frenchman and German arguing over what countries are called in their language: of course they are different, the argument is nonsense, and they are both correct.
But in English, you'd confuse the shit out of your audience if you said, "I went to America on vacation, Santiago is a cool city."
Similarly, in the English world, North and South America are considered two continents. Being the same landmass isn't the definition of continent--otherwise Europe, Asia, and Africa should be a single continent.
It is absolutely not.
> But in English, you'd confuse the shit out of your audience if you said, "I went to America on vacation, Santiago is a cool city."
Perhaps. That said, most people in the UK tend to take a second or two to realise what I mean, which seems like a soft signal that they know I'm not wrong despite the fact that my usage of the term might not be the most common one (if you follow the rest of the thread you'll find that I provided Wikipedia and dictionary proof).
> Being the same landmass isn't the definition of continent
I never said it is.
I don’t go and say, I’m glad it’s over for you but we’re still in the midst of it, so it’s not really over so get off your high horse!