Indeed, U.S.A. is not America!
America is the name of a whole continent. United States of America means that the United States belongs to America and NOT that America belongs to the United States. So, next time you want to refer to The United States of America, you can do it as U.S. or the States or whatever you want but not as only America. Gotcha?
How should I use the term America then?
Here we will show you some wrong and correct uses of the term America:
This is how we do it in America.
This is how we do it in the States.
- America is my country and I love it.
- The United States is my country and I love it.
- America lost the Vietnam war.
- U.S.A. lost the Vietnam war.
- Here in America we love Mc Donald's.
- Here in the U.S. we love Mc Donald's.
Please, note that this page in not about demonyms (gentilics) but about the way to call a country.
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Comments (1254)
United Statian Skate Punk
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfG8Sr-OpK3tNG8WHaY6jED5kkzFNgsf6
Hey David Morgan, don't you get bored of coming up with the same speech every three months and leave crying again and again with no arguments left?
It is wrong to say that ‘America’ only refers to the USA.
It is wrong to say that ‘America’ cannot refer to just the USA.
It is wrong to say that it is incorrect to call the USA ‘America’.
None of you has ever conclusively demonstrated that it is incorrect to call the USA ‘America’. You have not demonstrated this because you cannot demonstrate it. You cannot demonstrate it because it is not, in fact, incorrect. Words can and often do have more than one meaning. Your feelings and preferences don’t determine which usages are “correct” or “incorrect”.
To clarify: I mean that it is wrong to say that ‘America’ only has one meaning, and that meaning is ‘USA’. It is also wrong to claim that ‘America’ cannot be used to refer to the USA by itself, and not all of the Americas. It is perfectly correct to use ‘America’ to refer to the USA by itself, or to use ‘America’ to refer to all of the Americas. These are just two of the meanings of the name.
Personally, I thnk this has less to do with how language works and more about being culturally aware and considerate of different peoples. Don’t be ignorant. There’s more people in the Americas than just the US.
And there is only one America - the New World - aka. the Western Hemisphere
Wrong. America also refers to the USA. And América also refers to a professional Mexican soccer team. You don’t determine which usages are correct.
Actually, the Western Hemisphere isn’t just the new world. It’s also some parts of Europe and some parts of Africa and even some parts of Oceania.
Hey David, are you on any YouTube channels commenting?
I would like to interact with you!
Who would want to “interact” with your irrelevant copypasta?
Judging by your comment, we already have.
Which accounts do you use on YouTube?
Captain America’s copy and paste data is NOT IRRELEVANT!
ONLY YOUR MESSAGES ARE IRRELEVANT!
David, and where did the United States get the name America from????
“David, and where did the United States get the name America from????”
Misses the Obvious, as we both know, the ‘America’ in ‘United States of America’ refers to the continent. I have stated this many times. As we both know, this doesn’t mean that ‘America’ does not, or cannot, refer to the USA. This doesn’t mean that ‘America’ isn’t an unofficial name of the USA. This doesn’t mean that it’s “incorrect” to call the USA ‘America’?
Why do you keep asking me this question? I have already answered it correctly a number of times. What do you think you are proving?
I think that a simple and trauma-free solution would be that (in English) just add the U and S to American, "US American", and that American again means "person from any country in the Americas"
this page is not about demonyms
I am not the same person as David or Morgan or Isabel. We are 4 separate people.
God Bless America and the American peoples
https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ruderman/catalog/mh870zj4522
Indeed, the first non-indigenous language spoken in what became the United States was Spanish, not English
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/04/05/america-not-synonym-united-states
So what? Do you think that proves that America doesn’t often refer to the USA? Do you think that the way some people speak Spanish determines how English is spoken?
It is not about the English language. It is about ignorance and a culture of complacency.
the fact that spanish was spoken in usa before english has nothing to do with this website
Then -almost a hundred years after independence- the need would come to consider one nation and not several (consequence of the civil war) and this would be done through the use of the word with which they felt most UNIFIED, New Yorkers, Virginians , Pennsylvanians, etc against the British enemy, "Americans", a word that in the first decades of The United States was used only in its continental sense by the inhabitants of the new countries/states.
https://pintsofhistory.com/2014/10/23/why-the-u-s-has-no-name/
https://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/15/24
I found the source of all this controversy! several times I thought that the name of this country had something strange, it was not the typical name of one or two words like Japan, Argentina or Puerto Rico and New Zealand, it seemed the name of an organization / institution (international), but then I thought that maybe it was a silly thing to think and let it go. Until I found these articles, "Why the U.S. has no name?" by David W. Tollen and "American, United Statian, Usamerican, or Gringo?" by Luis Villafañe G. Santos
In the first article, he conclusively affirms that what was founded on July 4, 1776 was not one country but several, countries (states) that were organized together to confront and preserve their recent freedom against the all-powerful Great Britain, and that it is this is the reason for the "strange" name, the consideration of American countries ("American" because they belonged to the continent called America) called "The United States of America".
This is why in the declaration of independence the word "united" appears without an initial capital letter and after mentioning the number of states but the words "states" and "America": "the thirteen United States of America", and why the assembly that declared this independence was called "Continental Congress" or because its liberating armed force was called "Continental Army", or that in the Articles of Confederation it is written "the name of this CONFEDERATION shall be The United States of America" and not " the name of this NATION", etc etc.
Then -almost a hundred years after independence- the need would come to consider one nation and not several (consequence of the civil war) and this would be done through the use of the word with which they felt most UNIFIED, New Yorkers, Virginians , Pennsylvanians, etc against the British enemy, "Americans", a word that in the first decades of the United States was used only in its continental sense by the inhabitants of the new countries/states.
https://pintsofhistory.com/2014/10/23/why-the-u-s-has-no-name/
https://ejournals.library.vanderbilt.edu/index.php/ameriquests/article/view/15/24
Glad you shared this important info with us. Some people here might have never had a proper instruction on how the U.S. was started and why. And as you put it so eloquently, there are people who will not get it. I said this and some refute it but as you have shown us a little bit of research and history lesson shows us that the U.S. was a unity of sovereign States or nations which got united to be stronger against the intrusions of any other nation and usually from Europe which is the continent these States were trying to get their independence from. Thus, the United States, formed in the continent of America and thus they included it on their name of this Federation/Union, The United States of America. Not that America is the country, no, America is the continent in which these United States were founded.
Correction: "the thirdteen united States of America"
thank you Mrs. Anonymous! And what do you think about using the word "American" as a nationality?
Fabian, Americans are all those who live in the continent of America.
Learn the truth
https://www.change.org/americacontinent