this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
1106 points (98.8% liked)
memes
10405 readers
2065 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Wait, what? Are you serious? Oh my gosh. This is news to me. Just... wow. Does everyone else know this?
Pretty much everyone except people from "America", that is, the US.
Hint: People from Brazil are Americans.
Sorry if I missed the "/s" in your post
Well that is a broad generalization spoken from a place of ignorance. I promise you that the vast majority of Americans (that is, people from the U.S.) know about the Americas (that is, the continents).
That being said, colloquially, the term "America" generally refers to the United States. And that's true most everywhere, not just in the U.S.
Most people will say "North", "South", or "Americas" (plural) when talking about the continents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas
Click on the language button, you'll see the continents are called singular America in most languages (Spanish, French, German, etc...)
Afaik people in South America tend to refer to the continents as America as well, and say "united stadians" to people from the US
Language is a complicated and very fluid social construct. What means one thing somewhere might mean something different somewhere else, even if the same language is spoken in both places. Both usages of the word are correct, and it's both the responsibility of to the speaker and listener to understand each other. It's confusing, but that's how things are in the real world. Of course you can say "America" to refer to the continents, and if that's what's dictated by social contract where you're from, then more power to you. I'm just saying that you can't judge an entire nation of people based off the colloquial usage of a word (not that you were, I'm referring to the person I responded to).
well tbf 'From America' actually fulfills the country in 2 words request because US Americans are the only Americans egocentric enough to claim the term 'America' for themselves
I guess "American" is different then?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States#:~:text=Different%20languages%20use%20different%20terms,and%20then%20the%20United%20States
But you go ahead and keep hating on people who live in the U.S. No need to think for yourself.