Comment by johnisgood
4 days ago
I would not say "unambiguously" when it comes to natural languages.
And no, "America" may have referred to the US when I was a kid and here in Central Europe we had Back to the Future type of shoes with the American flag, yeah, and I would not say unambiguously so.
If someone says "America" to refer to a place, they really ought to specify if they want you to understand them.
I can't think of any English speaking countries in central Europe off the top of my head.
"America" is short for "The United States of America" in English. That's its definition. I don't understand how people have difficulty with this concept.
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But America isn't a place. There's the Americas, as in plural, referring to the continents of North America and South America.
So America is unassigned, hence why we assigned it to the USA colloquially.
Just for the sake of it I checked Wikipedia.
> The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America. When viewed as a single continent, the Americas are the 2nd largest continent by area after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and constitute the New World.
Yeah, OK, not sure "America" refers to The Oh-So-Great United of America according to this. Guess what? You can find 10 in each direction. Specify. If you disagree with "one should specify", why down-vote? Baffling, baffling indeed.
This wikipedia excerpt aligns exactly with what I said.
There's North and South America. These, together, are the Americas.
America is not that typically. Which makes sense, America is singular. But the Americas are two. So which one are we referring to?
Because if we say both, then the correct term is Americas. If we say just one, then it's North America or South America.
> why down-vote? Baffling
It’s a silly side discussion in which nothing new is being said. Complaining that America generally refers to the country is a hobby for some folks, and that’s fine, but it’s only entertaining for them.
If someone needs the America you’re talking about specified, i.e. they can’t figure it out from context, the discussion is sort of moot. (Same way one can use the word Europe despite it being incredibly ambiguous. Overspecificity comes at the cost of conciseness.)
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I keep getting down-voted, but I have never been against being specific, in fact, I was advocating to be specific[1], i.e. North American, Latin American, South America, etc.
[1] "If someone says "America" to refer to a place, they really ought to specify if they want you to understand them.".
Additionally, natural languages are inherently ambiguous.
So ugh, I do not think we disagree.
If someone can’t figure out what America I’m referring to when comparing America and China, I’m not sure how much useful conversation is left in them on the topic.
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