Utter nonsense. When will you learn that when discussing the usage and meaning of words in English, it doesn’t matter AT ALL how things are done in Spanish or any other language? Spanish doesn’t have to follow all the rules and conventions of English or any other language, and English isn’t obligated to follow all the rules and conventions of Spanish or any other language.

You have to respect your neighbors, independently of your mother language. The ignorance has a limit. Go beyond and you could be arrogant.

German, these are the perfectly logical languages that you referred to. Your amazing ignorance knows no bounds. You have no f*cking clue how languages work.

"desaconsejando el uso con este inapropiado significado." Did you read what it says here? It says that the Real Academia Espanola, does not advise to use it with this inappropriate meaning. Meaning that to use it to mean the name of the U.S. is inappropriate.

So the very rarely used name is “correct” and the very commonly used name is “incorrect”? How the language is actually spoken shows that ‘Americas’ is perfectly proper. It doesn’t matter that you don’t like it. It doesn’t matter how things are often done in other languages. It doesn’t matter that you have fabricated a bunch of fake rules that “prove” that it is wrong. People will continue to use ‘America’, ‘Americas’, and ‘American’ as they have been using them. The fact that they are used this way means that they have their respective meanings, and that they are correct. Their usage makes them correct. Your preferences and BS rules don’t make them incorrect. You have absolutely no idea how language works.

I assume that by "language" you mean "English". This is another example of anglocentrism. Let me tell you that all the languages that I know (Spanish, French, Italian) are logic. It amazes me that you think of yourself as an authority to speak about languages when you surely can't say a word in any other languages but English.

You assume wrong. I am talking about all languages. No language is logical (not ‘logic’) in the way you mistakenly think they are. How is it ‘logic’ to refer to the US and Americans as ‘Norteamérica’ and ‘norteamericanos’ when referring their country and nationality? If Spanish only demonstrates pure logic, how can the term ‘fútbol americano’ exist? How can ‘las Américas’ exist? You might not like or use these terms, but they surely exist. How can many Spaniards call the US ‘América’? How can many Brazilians call Americans ‘americanos’? The list goes on on. These are the perfectly logical (not ‘logic’) languages that you refer to? Again, you have no clue what you are writing about. Someone who demonstrates as much ignorance as you do should learn not to pretend to speak with any authority. Stop embarrassing yourself.

The first sentence of this comment should have been this quote:

“Words are manipulated by people! Words themselves don't change their meaning....”

Not an observation, it's true. So as words are manipulated by people, hence the word/name America has been manipulated by people to use it in whatever new meaning they chose to. In this case, with the U.S. using it to call itself with the same name of the continent where the U.S. stands on and with other countries also in the same continent, the matter seems complicated and conflicted. The issue gets even more strange when the continent was divided into two by the same countries who teach that the name of the U.S. is America. America is one continent and the U.S. is a country in that continent so the name of the U.S. is United States of America but not America by itself. Even when some in the world thinks it is the name of the U.S.

It is an observation that happens to be true. You should be happy because most of your observations are not true. Yes, obviously it is people who have given different meanings to the name ‘America’. This is how all words get their meanings. This is how your beloved, precious meaning of ‘America’ as all of the Americas came into being. Where your thinking goes horribly wrong is when you think that only your preferred altered meaning is correct, and that other meanings that you don’t like are incorrect. ‘America’ means the USA just as much as it means the Americas, and for exactly the same reasons. I know you don’t like it and that it hurts your feelings, but this doesn’t matter and it doesn’t change the facts and the reality of the situation. Any argument you make that ‘America’ doesn’t mean the USA is completely false.

Look your writings explain the conflict right away. When you can't use the word America for both the country and the continent on the same sentence. This is because you might feel conflicted to do it, and it shows that it is a conflict to have used the same name of the continent to use it for the country. For that reason, the English speaking world can't seem to use the original name of continent and because they felt the conflict, it was easier to recur and change the name of the continent by dividing it into two thus the name America would then be free for the take. And take they did!

An uncomfortable question with uncomfortable answers for your BS “arguments”. Just keep on pretending that the name ‘America’ was delivered from on high by baby Jesus, and that it always and forever only “truly”, “correctly”, and “logically” refers to all of the Americas. Remember that all changes made to language by humans are incorrect. This is because humans don’t create human language. That is clearly the job of God in her various forms.

Dah! You really don't get it! When you read history you don't just think that people lived in the same circumstances of today like if they were the same way back in 1492 or 1500's. The era of discovery was on its zenith and lands were being discovered and mapped and added to other pieces of lands as they were discovered. As the landmass got bigger and bigger the name America expanded to those lands and thus the entire continent was America!

I understand that perfectly. My point is that the original meaning of the name was changed. You falsely claim that ‘America’ cannot mean the USA because that is not the original meaning of the word. I know that this simply is not true. Words gain new meanings all the time. Words can and do have multiple meanings. There is no rule in any language that says that words can only have one meaning. So, if your false claims that ‘America’ cannot possibly refer to the USA are true, which they are not, then ‘America’ cannot refer to all of the Americas either. Because that is not the original meaning of the name. This is the point that I have been making all along. Intellectually challenged fools like you are the ones who don’t get it. Applying your own false argument to your preferred use of ‘America’ means that your preferred use of ‘America’ in INCORRECT. What don’t you understand about this?

Your past arguments about America being written on what Brazil is today and that Parias was written where Nuevo Mexico and later the U.S. is located did not back your point of view. The correct explanation is that the age of discovery was still on its height and Europeans formed the idea that it was a whole entire continent which they were discovering, and the name America came about after maps of the new world were gathered and put together to name a continent not just a piece of land in the south, but the entire continent. If now how do you explain maps after the 1507 map where America is the entire continent?

I am not saying that your preferred meaning of ‘America’ actually is incorrect, only that if your arguments against ‘America’ having the meaning of the USA were correct, which they obviously are not, then your preferred meaning of ‘America’ would also be incorrect. ‘America’ means the Americas and the USA, among other things.

People added a new meaning to the name to make it mean the USA. People added a new meaning to the name to make it mean the Americas. You claim that the first is incorrect and that the second is correct. Why do you think it is? What rules are being violated by the first that aren’t being violated by the second? You claim the first is incorrect and the second is correct even though they have undergone the exact same process of formation. They were both formed by giving a different meaning to the word ‘America’. How is it OK to do this for one but not for the other? You really think your preferences determine which meanings are correct and which are incorrect?

The name America is not incorrect, is the usage that is conflicted. How can you use the same name of the continent for a country in the same continent? Please explain. Another person gave us the example of Europe, if a country all of the sudden decides to call itself "U.S. Of Europe" and call it in its short form "Europe", and its citizen start calling themselves European but don't want to share the same name with the rest of Europe...I am adding this: so they recur to divide the European continent into South Europe, East Europe, North Europe etc. so that they can claim the name Europe for their country, would that be incorrect?

Brilliant. Thanks.

If the U.S. should follow suit on the names and adopt one like these countries mentioned above, then it would be "The Federal Republic of the United States of America".

So that’s the only “correct” possibility? You have a rigorous linguistic and mathematical proof of this? Give us a break.

Unlike you that don't have one against it, the U.S. is truly a Federal Republic. The country might not use it on the name but it is. Other countries choose to use it on their names and that should not be any example as to why using United States as the name should be incorrect.

Frotusa!

Now we are getting somewhere! A real name, not just a temporary tag. Same goes for South Sudan, the Central African Republic, United Arab Emerites, West Virginia...

A “temporary tag” that has existed for a quarter of a millennium? So you are obviously a deep thinker like German, Saris, and Roda. Bravo.

As I have said before, yes the name has been used for the U.S. citizens in some parts of the world. That does not mean it is not the name of the continent. Taking the name of the continent by the U.S. so that it can use it for its own is what is happened. All of you who assert that it is used by the U.S. but do not even try to discuss where it came from, know very well that the name has been usurped for years and years and now just because the name has landed credibility in people who don't know the whole history doesn't mean that it is correct. America is the name of the continent and has been used by the U.S. for many years as their own.

Who here is saying that the name didn’t originate as a name for the continent of South America? I don’t remember ever reading on this site the claim that the name ‘America’ was first used by the USA.

Not one because the name was to be for the whole entire continent and there is no South American continent except for the English and some other countries who have changed the whole continent by dividing it into two.a And Yes, the 1507 maps had it written on what is now Brazil but as the emergence of new territory in America was known, that part of the territory was included in the name of America since it was counted as one continent.

Maybe. Maybe not. What we do know is that it happened in the Americas with the United States.

Whether or not it sounds right to you or anyone else, it is the reality of the situation. It is a fact that the USA is very commonly called ‘America’ by many, many, many people all over the world who speak many different languages.

There are a number of people who post here who like to pretend that facts that they don’t like are not facts. They pretend that their preferences determine reality. I hope you aren’t one of these poor souls.

The spread of the incorrect name for the U.S. as America, has spread in the world and the advertising has been endless.

It is not incorrect. Words can and do have multiple meanings. Your approval isn’t required.

Words are manipulated by people! Words themselves don't change their meaning, people change them and so people took the name of the continent to use it to call the country of the U.S. and for some reason they continued until it was hard to go back and correct it. Call something something a million times and whaaalaa! it becomes that something. The spread of an error is not merely a fact but a wrong fact. Your fact is wrong from the origin and so it has a weak base. It does not matter if people now call the U.S. America or Americans the people of the U.S, because people change the meaning of the words as they seem fit or by keeping the status quo, or by mere tradition, but mistakes happen in these changes and so when we say that the U.S. is wrongly using the name America for itself due to the fact that the U.S. is on American soil, the one continent America, same as other 30 something nations this is a fact.

They refer to the US as America because it is one of the country’s names.

According to your reasoning, "the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria" could be referred to as "People", because "People" is one of the country's name.

That’s not my reasoning, you simpleton. ‘People’ IS NOT one of Algeria’s names because the country IS NOT just called ‘People’. ‘America’ IS one of the US’s names because the country very commonly IS called ‘America’. Why are you such a moron?

I'll say it again. Américo does NOT have anything to do with your country. América is the name of the whole continent. That's how Europeans called it. And it was long before the British settlements in North America. So, respect my continent's name. Your country is the United States, or United States of (a continent called) America. It will never be America alone.

But the US is America. Because people call it that. Because that is one of its names.

The Americas are America. Because people call it that. Because that is one of its names.

The only reason that the Americas IS America is because people call it that. For this EXACT same reason the United States IS America. All that matters is what people call things.

Your BS rules, that you pretend prevent the US from being America, do not exist. They are fictional. They are fantasy. Words can and do have multiple meanings. This is the case with America. America originally referred only to South America. Now it refers to many other things, including the Americas and the USA. This is simply a fact. Your dislike of this fact doesn’t change anything. What is the rule that says that America only means what you want it to mean? We both know that no such rule exists. You lose.

People IN YOUR COUNTRY call it that. All Spanish speaking countries and continental Europe stick to the original and real definition: America is a continent. Check your facts on Wikipedia.