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Comment by hk__2 | Hacker News Reader

EU, not Europe.

The Register, being British, should probably have gotten this right, but people constantly get this wrong. Even a lot of people living in the union don't even realize the different between EU, Europe, EEA, Schengen and all the other layers, so maybe it's hard to blame "outsiders" from not getting it either.

I'm guessing maybe the "European Commission" threw them off, because it's an EU entity (basically the executive branch), not "Europe wide" one, which the name kind of implies. But then "EU" also implies "Europe wide" in its name, and people seem to kind of get the difference most of the times.

The Register know very well what the EU is. However, in practice, the EU is colloquially referred to as "Europe" in many contexts in the UK.

The rules the EU establishes will also apply to the EEA, and in practice will almost certainly also be adopted by the UK, which has tended to take its lead from the EU on such matters since Brexit. So, while pedantically these are not rules for Europe, _for practical purposes_ they likely will be.

Also, most people are aware that "Europe" the continent is unlikely to make such decisions, so it's pretty obvious what's meant by context.

It's not obvious at all actually, since there are many European things that also affect Island, Norway and Switzerland for being part of EFTA, but an equally high number of things that don't.

And even the EU itself is pretty fragmented with various overlapping areas with different rules.

As someone who's studied European relations, I can tell you that it's a real mess, and the fact that journalists don't accurately reporting the facts definitely isn't helpful.

There are others ways to coordinates european countries than EU institutions

What continent does UK consider itself part of then?

Context matters; you can generally tell whether someone's talking politics or geography.

But in politics the distinction between EU and Europe matters, there's the political EU region, but countries like Switzerland and Norway are politically still in Europe despite not being in EU just due to all the neighboring countries, in theory same should apply to UK

It likes to believe it is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Whenever I go to the UK, people there seem to consistently refer to EU or the rest/continental europe in general as "europe", esp in political/economic context. My impression is that the UK is just too important to be grouped together with other countries.

Ask two different people and get three different answers.

>the EU is colloquially referred to as "Europe" in many contexts in the UK.

It really should have been EUR for Europe, and EU as in European Union.

I think most people realise there is a difference. If nothing else, Brexit made it very clear to those who didn't already know that you can be in this part of the world but not in the EU. But rightly or wrongly, people still use "Europe" as shorthand for "the European Union". It's no different to referring to the US as "America".

I do think the media should aim to do better so agree that the Register should have used the correct term.

I find your comparison not so convincing. While there is some common misidentification between the EU and Europe, I’ve never heard anyone in the world refer to “America” in a way that was not for the United States.

In my personal experience, people from Latin American countries will sometimes point out that they are American because they come from North or South America.

Which is, of course, true; however, in English conversation, it's often nothing more than pedantry. In Spanish it makes more sense, since there is a separate demonym for a US person that doesn't co-opt the term "American."

Outside of Romance language speakers born on the American continents, I agree that everyone seems fine calling US-born persons "Americans" without much confusion nor gnashing of teeth.

It’s even more amusing in some ways. A common way to refer to those from the USA in Brazil, for instance (even an official one!) is ‘Norte Americano’.

Which is all kinds of weird because - what about Mexico and Canada? And what about the ‘United states’ part?

It’s just to disambiguate from ‘Americano’ as in what others in South America sometimes use to refer to latin Americans and as a little bit of a FU to the USA, hahah.

Ahh, I forgot about that...and to be transparent, I actually have no idea what French Guyana, Haiti, or Belize typically do to differentiate between people of the American continent(s) and US persons. I should have said Hispanoamerica, but oh well.

If I’ve learned anything in Brazil, it’s that it’s all good bro - as long as you aren’t Argentinian. Then we need to fight, or something hah.

> I actually have no idea what French Guyana, Haiti, or Belize typically do to differentiate between people of the American continent(s) and US persons.

In French, people from the Americas are américains. This includes, say québecois and Brazilians. When context matters, people from the US are états-uniens.

Perhaps in Haiti, I don’t know. But at least in France, “américain” means from the US 99% of the time.

Probably because the US are much more mentioned than other American countries. But that’s not really the point, though. People from the US are américains, they’re part of the group of people living in America (which, in French and when it is not qualified, refers to all of them, North, Central, and South).

The point is that nobody would object if you refer to someone from anywhere else in the Americas as américain. Like my lab mate from Buenos Aires or friends from Montréal. And we’re definitely not in Haiti.

North America also formally has two United States: Mexico and America.

It is normal in Spanish-speaking countries (and probably others) to consider the entirety of North and South America to be one continent called “America”.

One of the most famous soccer teams in Mexico is even called “Club América”, obviously this doesn’t refer to the US.

Kind of up to the US border. Canada gets lumped up in with the USA hah.

"In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered America" is a sentence I've certainly heard before, but he didn't at any point land on any area covered by the United States of America (except maybe Panama)

That ambiguity disappears if you call it "the Americas", but many places see America as one continent (including Latin America, parts of Europe and the Olympic flag)

I have no idea why this informative and totally correct comment was downvoted, but anyway, I upvoted it to balance that out.

Maybe in English. In Spanish (and we’re a bunch, the native Spanish speakers) I guarantee that if you say “América” you’re referring to the continent. The country is “Estados Unidos” (United States) or its abbreviation, EEUU. And its citizens, “estadounidenses”, not “americanos”.

> estadounidenses

And in French the inhabitants of "les Etats-Unis" are "Etats-uniens". I've taken the habit of referring to them as USAians, which often gets negative reactionsand remains rare - but I find it is the most accurate demonym and I'll keep pushing it.

I look forward to the world inventing demonyms for the citizens of the European Union, because at least it will mean that our emerging national body is getting mindshare !

Whenever I’ve heard the term américain it’s been used to refer to a US citizen, not a mexicain or citizen of some other American country.

Yes, "Américains" is much more common - and that is the windmill I'm tilting at.

> I look forward to the world inventing demonyms for the citizens of the European Union, because at least it will mean that our emerging national body is getting mindshare !

USA is a country and EU is not

The European Union is an emerging country - it is my country. For now, many don't yet understand how common necessity binds us, and some remain under the illusion that they can make it alone against China and the USA, but ever closer union is real and whoever has been on Erasmus student exchange knows we are one people. On my French passport, "Union Européenne" is written above "République Française" - that is the hierarchy. A nation is people who will to live together, and the European Union is that... The rest is a couple treaties and a few decades away !

You’re right, but this is probably a losing battle. People are probably never going to stop colloquially referring to the political entity that contains most of Europe’s land and population as “Europe”.

And, being on an island, British people are probably never going to stop thinking of “the continent” as at least a little bit of a different thing from themselves.

And on top of that, when it comes to anything radio, ITU has quite the lot to say as well, and you got the ham radio community / IARU as well.

Radio, by virtue of physically not caring about borders, is a really really hot mess, with lots of very powerful and very monied interests floating around.

Switzerland is not in the EU but they follow EU legislation.

It's kinda like Canada and the US.

Not directly though. They get some exceptions and they have referenda to implement things.

They align with the EU a lot for commercial reasons but not completely. Same with Norway. And really, if they did align completely there'd be no reason to not join.

I think people understand that a continent isn’t making decisions.

To be really pedantic we should acknowledge there's no good reason to separate Europe from Asia, it's all one geographical continent.

The distinction between EU and Europe is very important. They're "word stealing" something as neutral as a geographical concept, to make it political.

But in this case here, probably if EU legislate on this, others non-EU european countries will follow

> To be really pedantic we should acknowledge there's no good reason to separate Europe from Asia, it's all one geographical continent.

To be even more pedantic you have to throw in Africa as well, as that is connected by land to Asia just like Europe is! Now we have the supercontinent Afroeurasia which contains like 85% of the worlds population.

Suez Canal exists and cuts off Africa from Eurasia

Obviously, but in case the sarcasm of my comment didn't come through: I was trying to make the point that you can't draw lines between continents just because of geography (or tectonic plates for that matter). It's arbitrary - after all we can't even agree which continents do exist.

Relevant watching: Map Men: How many continents are there? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0)

Yes it is arbitrary (like most of things actually) but the distinction between Europe and Asia is the most arbitrary of all of them

It's an interesting topic since most people in a hypothetical Eurasia would probably never call themselves Eurasian, but would have a strong sense of being one or the other. But on the other hand there is also no universally agreed to boundary between the two as well. And maybe this imprecision the best representation of reality that we have for this.

That'd be another definition we could use yes

So Africa separated from Eurasia in 1869? And if canals count then Northern Germany is its own continent, Great Britain is several continents, etc. Man-made canals forming a meaningful geographical separation is a weird concept on so many levels

Sitting in my bathtub I am more a continent than North-America

Tell me more how Europe is separated by a canal from Asia ? There are benefits splitting America in two, splitting Africa from Eurasia, splitting Australia from Eurasia. What's the benefit of splitting Eurasia into Europe and Asia, besides catering to europeans who believe they're unique in the world ? It only creates more problems

Europe and Asia are separated by mountains. Geographically that's at least as valid as splitting America on a canal, and splitting Africa from Asia on a canal. If anything the mountains are a more significant barrier to travel and migration than those canals

If we were to rearrange the continents if anything we should split up Asia further, and split Africa into Northern Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa (maybe giving Sub-Saharan Africa to the same new continent as the Arabian peninsula, but that's debatable)

Europe and Asia are highly connected land masses

> There are benefits splitting America in two

Are there? Most Latin American countries, who see all of America as a single continent, would disagree.

It really makes no sense to argue about this. As I already mentioned, there is no universally agreed model of which continents exist and where the boundaries lie. In the end people feel like they belong to one or the other and that's as far as it will probably ever get.

As others mentioned, this is British press and Britts tend to colloquially refer to EU as 'Europe'.

It’s called a metonymy and is purposeful.

Everyone understood that it was the relevant nearly pan-European political entity which was actually designed by the geographical designation.

It's essentially exactly the same as when people refer to the US as 'America'. While the US does not encompass all of the American continent, there is only one political entity called 'America' so it's not ambigious.

EU is more Europe than USA is America, yet you don't see much complaining about the latter.

> yet you don't see much complaining about the latter.

I see that a lot. It just needs people from not the US, but from Americas in comments. Suddenly there are people that are complaining about it.

Do you also write "USA, not America" for every headline that uses the later?

You are the one who corrects america with usa?

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