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)
I am surprised that you haven’t written your standard nonsense about how the number of rings on the Olympic flag “proves” that the Americas are one continent. And how the fact that the US is officially named as the ‘United States of America’ at the Olympics “proves” that ‘America’ is not an unofficial name of the US.
Have you finally accepted reality? That would be both surprising and refreshing.
Dude you are in denial.
Please explain
“A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.”
― Booker T. Washington
America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback.
United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.
Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality. The proper terms are in fact U.S. Citizen, United Statesian and U.S. American.
United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/
i added your site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States#See_also
U.S. Propaganda throughout the Anglo-sphere of influence does not outweigh the truth
America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback.
United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.
Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality. The proper terms are in fact U.S. Citizen, United Statesian and U.S. American.
United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/
American is everyone that's from what's genuinely America, The New World. The qualified term American refers to a specific group of Americans. Just like qualifying the term European refers to a specific group of Europeans. This is like having to explain that sports cars are cars.
e.g.
North AMERICAN
Central AMERICANS
South AMERICANS
Insular AMERICANS
Meso AMERICANS
Latin AMERICANS
Anglo AMERICANS
etc.. are all AMERICANS.
The mental gymnastics that it takes to ignore the term AMERICAN in everyone of those in favor of and insisting on hold on to an obvious misconception promoted by one's arrogant predecessors throughout the anglos-sphere is remarkable to say the list.
But guess we shouldn't be surprised given the fact that we live in a world where a man can legally claim to be a woman and those who fail to acknowledge them as such can be fired from their job and/or be sued.
A common argument by US Americans against using a demonym like "United Stater" is that it takes the more bureaucratic part of its official full name (The United States of America), however there seems to be no problem with doing so with that of the United Arab Emirates, which is "Emirati". In other words, it is not a fair issue, but rather a matter of using one that they really liked, or because they did not want to correct the one they used when they were not yet a single country, but a confederation of several.
Ignorance does not outweigh the truth
America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback.
United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.
Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality. The proper terms are in fact U.S. Citizen, United Statesian and U.S. American.
United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/
This website has a basic error, which believes that US Americans say that their country is called America, and that is not true.
The name of the country is the entire complete phrase, "The United States of America", not just "United States" nor just "America", "The United States of America", thus, the entire complete phrase is THE name of the country.
(continues in the next message)
But, since it is a name so long that it cannot be said in full every time it is mentioned, they abbreviate it, and they do so in various ways; There is the official way to do it, which is "United States", which in fact is the one they use the most. But there are also informal ways to abbreviate The United States of America, and that is by simply saying "America"; and it's just that, an abbreviation, which is not even official.
(continues in the next message)
Furthermore, "America" is not the only informal way to abbreviate the full name, they also often do so by saying "The States"; Even in some cases saying only the initials of the United States (U.S.) can also be pronounced in an informal tone, "The US".
I think that the use of the demonym "American" as if it were a nationality is more controversial than what I explained previously.
Although even that has its moderation regarding that use of the word "American", and that is to consider the different conventions on the use of words in different languages. That is, in English the word American is used to say United Statian* and in Spanish (for example) the word "americano" is used for continental, and people from the United States are called "estadounidenses".
*So in English only the terms "North American" or "South American" are used to refer to continental.
Some Spanish speakers use ‘americano’ instead of ‘estadounidense’ when referring to US citizens. All Spanish speakers don’t speak in exactly the same way. They don’t all use exactly the same words for everything.
There are very few left who use the word americano to denote the "nationality" of someone from the US, and in general most of them tend to use the word "norteamericano", which is also inappropriate because Canadians and Mexicans are also North Americans.
Americano and norteamericano are not exact terms to refer to someone from the US in Spanish, they are only used as colloquial and imprecise synonyms for estadounidense.
Wrong
All you have to do is review several news websites from all Spanish-speaking countries and enter "American" in their search engines to find reports in which THAT word is used and you will find them, and that is the evidence that even if only that word is not used, and whether norteamerican and americano are also used, "estadounidense" is the right word and the others are not. Believe me, I am Ecuadorian and I also lived in Argentina and that is how I tell you, plus if you ever go it will seem that the one that is most used is norteamericano.
And furthermore, the fact that the relativity of the use of the word americano only happens in Spanish is not true; In English the word American is not only used for US citizens, and it is also used for terms that refer to things in the Americas as a whole, such as "Organization of American States" and the "American Cordillera"
America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback.
United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.
Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality. The proper terms are in fact U.S. Citizen, United Statesian and U.S. American.
United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/
I agree with you that the name "America" should refer to the Americas in general and not one specific country. One problem that arises from that usage is what then is the nationality of the United States? I like the word used in Spanish (they do not use American as the nationality), they use "estadounidense" which means "person of the United States." But, and this is the unfortunate part, the Articles of Confederation, Article 1, says, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" That, and the preamble of the constitution includes this "...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." That and the Articles of Confederation cemented the word America as the name of the country. (continued in next comment)
So, I asked ChatGPT for verification and got this response:
there is some historical nuance regarding the inclusion of "of America" in the Constitution. The original handwritten copies of the Constitution, including the engrossed copy signed by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, do not include the phrase "of America" after "United States."
The preamble of the Constitution in these original copies reads: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."
(continued in next message)
The phrase "of America" was not included in the text as originally ratified. However, over time, the phrase came to be commonly associated with the official name of the country, and it has been included in later copies and editions of the Constitution.
So while the Articles of Confederation explicitly used "of America," the Constitution itself did not originally include that phrase. It's possible that the phrase was added in later editions or became a customary part of the title, but it wasn't part of the original text as ratified in 1787.
(end of chat session)
Why aren’t any of you commenting anymore?
I guess you have finally admitted to yourselves the obvious fact that ‘America’ correctly refers to a number of things, including the USA.
Congratulations on overcoming your narrow-mindedness and accepting that your preferred usage isn’t the only one that exists, and isn’t the only one that is correct. You’re finally growing up.
America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback. United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.
Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality.
United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/
It seems to me that it is called America, but since they cannot be called exactly the same as the continent, they called themselves "United States of America." Something like what happens in cases like Tucumán (province) and its capital "San Miguel de Tucumán", which is also usually called just Tucumán (although clarifying that it is the capital city).
I and go apologies, I tried to upvote your response but hit the wrong button. Completely agreed with your sentiment... people from the US don't call themselves "Americans" because they're carrying to claim their whole continent group, they're using the term because it's in the country's name, and many of the Europeans were already referring to is by this term. Like you mentioned, if there is any ambiguity, people from the US are quick to clarify, "oh I'm from the US, not another part of 'the Americas'" (using this term instead to describe North + South America). In addition, it may have been useful to use the term American to differentiate themselves from the "other" United States (the United Mexican States). As these are both large countries that border each other, it was probably natural to just differentiate between the two United States with the simplified terms "Mexican" and "American".