America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
Posted Mar 19, 2020 18:52 UTC (Thu) by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039)In reply to: America is a continent, not a country by tekNico
Parent article: Bringing encryption restrictions in through the back door
Posted Mar 19, 2020 19:07 UTC (Thu)
by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039)
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Posted Mar 19, 2020 22:07 UTC (Thu)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Posted Mar 20, 2020 13:05 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
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Cheers,
Posted Aug 14, 2024 22:30 UTC (Wed)
by neilbrown (subscriber, #359)
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Posted Aug 16, 2024 22:55 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
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Nowadays the distinction is that Britons come from Grand Bretagne, while Bretons come from Petit Bretagne.
Nationality is complicated ... and usually rooted in myth, not fact, to boot ...
Cheers,
Posted Aug 19, 2024 7:53 UTC (Mon)
by laarmen (subscriber, #63948)
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Posted Aug 20, 2024 14:50 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
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But I've always understood Grand- and Petit- Bretagne to be a matching pair, as in "the land of the Br(e/i)tons" before the Romans, so Petit-Bretagne to me is all of Brittany. I didn't know that was divided into "Upper" and "Lower".
Cheers,
Posted Aug 20, 2024 23:45 UTC (Tue)
by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039)
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Posted Aug 14, 2024 12:52 UTC (Wed)
by Delicieuxz (guest, #172896)
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In Spanish (which is the dominant language of America), there's "estadounidenses", which translates to United-Statesian. The shorter form for which would be USian.
In French, there's états-unien, which again translates to United-Statesian.
In Italian, there's statunitense, which is again United-Statesian.
In German, there's US-Amerikaner, which translates to US-American - as opposed to Canadian-American, Peruvian-American, Bolivian-American, etc.
In Canada, we rarely use the term America to refer to the US, or American to refer to a US citizen. We usually call the US the US, and a person from the US simply a US citizen, from the US, or from the States. Personally, I use the term USian all the time now.
I've seen it said on occasion "but Mexico's full name is the United States of Mexico, so wouldn't there be confusion there?" And that's not correct, as the full name of Mexico is actually The United Mexican States.
There's a document I saw on the Library of Congress' website which says that the trend of referring to US citizens as Americans wasn't popularized until the 20th century, and happened as a result of the US becoming an empire. So, it's an imperialist slang.
The continent America, with north and south sub-continents (like Eurasia has Europe and Asia sub-continents) was named America centuries before the US existed, and the US from its beginning was named merely "of" the continent America. In fact, in 1783, right before the US became a country, the states were being referred to as the united states of north America. Then the name was shortened to the US of A, but the America in the name always referred to the continent.
So, I don't feel comfortable calling the US by a name that misappropriates what belongs to 35 different countries, or its people's nationality by a term that applies to all the people of America. It's a misnomer and misappropriation, and is basically identity theft for the sake of aggrandizing and reinforcing the imperialist mindset in an impererialist state.
And I cringe a bit when people claim the term for the collective landmass of north and south America is "the Americas", as "the Americas" is plural, referring to multiple landmasses at once. The fact that "Americas" is plural testifies that, as a singular landmass, its name is America.
Posted Aug 14, 2024 13:12 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
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The architect Frank Lloyd Wright was in favour of the term “Usonian”, which however does not seem to have caught on.
The only language which appears to have picked it up is Esperanto, where the United States is called usono, and its inhabitants are usonanoj.
Posted Aug 14, 2024 14:58 UTC (Wed)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
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Posted Aug 14, 2024 15:25 UTC (Wed)
by excors (subscriber, #95769)
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Posted Aug 14, 2024 19:42 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
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There are two countries with the words "United States" in the official name: the USA, and... Mexico. There's only one country with the word "America" in the official name.
Posted Aug 14, 2024 19:54 UTC (Wed)
by daroc (editor, #160859)
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Posted Aug 14, 2024 20:33 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
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"American" also doesn't clash with any other country's name (official or not). It would have been a different story if a significant number of people identified themselves as "North American" or "South American", but I don't think it's a thing?
Posted Aug 20, 2024 12:32 UTC (Tue)
by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039)
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You and I must live in different Canadas, then. While I agree "America" is practically never used outside an ironic context, I also rarely if ever hear fellow Canadians use a name for our southern neighbours other than "American" (or « américain » in French).
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
Wol
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
Wol
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
Wol
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
There are widely-recognized demonyms to refer to a US citizen other than the misnomer and misappropriation of American. Just maybe not in English.
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country
America is a continent, not a country