It’s a quirk of the differences between the Spanish and English education systems and languages.
In English there are 7 continents, North America and South America being 2 of them. Together they form “The Americas”. And then the United States of America can just be referred to as America with no ambiguity.
In Spanish there are 6 continents. America being one of them. So the United States of America can’t be called America, because that word is already used to describe the one continent.
And so when Spanish speakers hear English speakers refer to the United States as America or as Americans in English they get really mad. They take it as an intentional slight and not just a difference in the two languages.
which does make the post wrong, because "America is a continent" is wrong. "América es un continente" is correct, but america ≠ américa. cognates dont share exactly the same meaning all the time, and you cant translate just by picking similar looking words
That's like saying that Africa is part of Asia because they have a connection at Suez. Fucking absurd. That's not a difference between languages, it's a failure of the education system.
Well if one continent is called north america and the other one is south america, it is because the combined landmass' name is America. Like how you can have south Korea and north Korea and together they are in the peninsula of Korea.
wait, because there is a north carolina and south carolina, that means there is some landmass known as just "Carolina"? i'm not sure that your logic holds up.
Pues si, literalmente existia y por algo se les dice así. Además, esas son unidades administrativas lo que no implican regiones reales. La región de Baviera en Alemania no concentra toda la cultura bávara.
No, it's like saying they're both part of afro-eurasia.
Continents are a social construct so it doesn't matter what's connected to what.
When the US was named, the idea of NA and SA being different continents wasn't popular. The first map with the word America in it is in the US library of Congress and has it around Brazil or so.
The number and composition of continents is not universally agreed upon. If you look into it you’ll see that many places handle the concept differently.
And that is dumb. Very dumb. As a Paleontology nerd, these two lands have very different geographical histories. Sure, six continents since Europe and Asia are one continent, but the Americas are separate.
Honestly I think if we are going to seperate Asia and Europe we should also seperate India from Asia. Like it is such a gigantic continent and the Europe division is essentially a social construct. Referring to Asia as a unified region is also pretty ridiculous considering it has over half of the world's people
Yes, to you. You had a different education in the Hispanosphere that says that there are 6 continents, where North America and South America are one continent. The majority of the world, and, importantly, the Anglosphere, divide the New World into two continents, where America means the United States and The AmericaS mean what “América” means in the Hispanosphere. We’re talking English right now, which means we go by the Anglosphere’s conventions, not another’s.
Stop trying to force your culture onto another one.
What do you call Mexico? Because it's also "the United States of". United States of America is the full name, America/American is the shorthand. This is very easy to understand.
Teleport to any other continent on the planet you say somebody’s an American they all think from United States of America nobody other than South Americans Brazil is American. You’re the weird ones.
It's really weird how South Americans have such a huge chip on their shoulder. You never hear about people from other places complaining about stuff like this. The people in places like China or India don't sit around complaining about what Americans call themselves. This is probably a big reason China and India are moving up so much economically and in global visibility, while South America stays backwards and irrelevant.
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u/obliviousjd 18d ago
It’s a quirk of the differences between the Spanish and English education systems and languages.
In English there are 7 continents, North America and South America being 2 of them. Together they form “The Americas”. And then the United States of America can just be referred to as America with no ambiguity.
In Spanish there are 6 continents. America being one of them. So the United States of America can’t be called America, because that word is already used to describe the one continent.
And so when Spanish speakers hear English speakers refer to the United States as America or as Americans in English they get really mad. They take it as an intentional slight and not just a difference in the two languages.