Hell, watch an American's face when you explain to them that "America" doesn't ONLY refer to the united states.
See the gears grind to a halt when they are reeducated on the concepts of "Central AMERICA" and "South AMERICA".
See the gears grind to a halt when they are reeducated on the concepts of "Central AMERICA" and "South AMERICA".
People often get confused by divisions like this because they feel like they should be real in an objective sense, but continents are almost entirely social constructs. (There is a North American tectonic plate, and that's real, but it doesn't quite line up with the continent)
I guess the Organization of American States exists. But usually it's pretty unambiguous which sense is being used; like, I guess you could call Mark Carney an American head of government but it's basically just being obtuse, unless it was in the context of, say, a meeting of Carney with other heads of government in the hemisphere, and then it'd be unambiguous what was meant.
Even "United States of America" is not unambiguous in the most pathological case; Mexico is also a country consisting of united states existing in the Americas.