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Comment by NoboruWataya | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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 !

"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.

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 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.

> 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.

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.

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

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