People who are adamant about “America is too confusing” are very rarely in agreement with “Afro-Eurasia”, such that if someone says “Colombians are American”, they’re unlikely to say “French people are African” or even “Afro-Eurasian”.
It’s a cultural/language thing, rather than an objective one. There’s no reason that (most) English speakers who don’t call Peruvians “Americans” are any more incorrect than Peruvians who don’t say “Spanish people are Africans” are wrong. But it’s become a whole thing on the internet to say that “USians are dumb and wrong” for not having the same language concepts as other cultures. There are just different numbers of continents taught in different cultures.
But as a tourist, does anyone from outside the US say “I’m American” when they’re asked where they’re from? Canadians at least sure as fuck would never say that.
Nobody is saying it’s too confusing. They’re saying “stop claiming that word for yourself”.
Your examples are incorrect. The equivalent would be if France was called The United States of Europe, and used the word Europeans to refer exclusively to themselves.
Then, naturally, Germans would stop using the word European to refer to themselves because others would think they were referring to France (The United States of Europe in this example).
People regularly talk about Europe when they actually mean the EU or the other way around. I think that’s the closest there is, and it’s also annoying.
The USA is one of the few countries on earth to use a continent name as part of its country name. Yet you don’t see too many people saying South Africa should refer to the entire southern part of the continent.
People also don’t seem to have a problem with using “US”, which overlaps with Mexico aka EUM (or USM in English). Like I said, it’s mostly a language and cultural divide. Are you advocating that Canadians or Mexicans should say they’re American, even if they don’t want to? In the English speaking world no one other than the USA says American.
Probably referring to Mexico’s official name, Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
Thanks! I never knew it had a longer official name.
People who are adamant about “America is too confusing” are very rarely in agreement with “Afro-Eurasia”, such that if someone says “Colombians are American”, they’re unlikely to say “French people are African” or even “Afro-Eurasian”.
It’s a cultural/language thing, rather than an objective one. There’s no reason that (most) English speakers who don’t call Peruvians “Americans” are any more incorrect than Peruvians who don’t say “Spanish people are Africans” are wrong. But it’s become a whole thing on the internet to say that “USians are dumb and wrong” for not having the same language concepts as other cultures. There are just different numbers of continents taught in different cultures.
But as a tourist, does anyone from outside the US say “I’m American” when they’re asked where they’re from? Canadians at least sure as fuck would never say that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent?useskin=vector#Number
Nobody is saying it’s too confusing. They’re saying “stop claiming that word for yourself”.
Your examples are incorrect. The equivalent would be if France was called The United States of Europe, and used the word Europeans to refer exclusively to themselves.
Then, naturally, Germans would stop using the word European to refer to themselves because others would think they were referring to France (The United States of Europe in this example).
People regularly talk about Europe when they actually mean the EU or the other way around. I think that’s the closest there is, and it’s also annoying.
The USA is one of the few countries on earth to use a continent name as part of its country name. Yet you don’t see too many people saying South Africa should refer to the entire southern part of the continent.
People also don’t seem to have a problem with using “US”, which overlaps with Mexico aka EUM (or USM in English). Like I said, it’s mostly a language and cultural divide. Are you advocating that Canadians or Mexicans should say they’re American, even if they don’t want to? In the English speaking world no one other than the USA says American.