Comment by JumpCrisscross
4 days ago
Continents are a social construct. In North American English, we typically divide the Americas into a North and South America. The collective noun for North and South America is the Americas. (Though this remains ambiguous in respect of the Caribbean and Pacific Islands.)
Getting pedantic about calling America America is sort of like insisting on referring to China as Zhonghua. Like, sure. Whatever. But you’re clearly insisting on substituting a substantial discussion with a semantic one.
I thought continents are a geographical term divided by tectonic plates and such. Still seams to be weird to single out a single country to assign the name of a continent.
> thought continents are a geographical term divided by tectonic plates and such
Common misconception, but incorrect. Here is a map of major tectonic plates [1]. They sort of map to our continents. But only loosely. European countries often fissure Eurasia, same way many Spanish-language countries unify the North American, South American, Caribbean, Cocos, Nazca, Scotia and Juan de Fuca plates into an Americas. (Or include the Arabias and India in Asia, et cetera.)
> seams to be weird to single out a single country to assign the name of a continent
New Zealand doesn’t like the Australian plate, Trump doesn’t like the Gulf of Mexico, Riyadh the Persian Gulf, et cetera. At the end of the day, you have to decide if you’re having a substantive or semantic discussion. I personally tend to find the latter boring and repetitive unless actually digging into the meat of the issue (versus the usual “I like to say it this way QED”.)
[1] https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/tectonic-plates-earth