[yousir]

> South of south America, more or less equivalent to Florida

Are you calling North America "America", and then go on and call Florida "south America", as if there isn't such a place in the world as South America? I do not approve of this North America-centric view of the world at all.

[coldtea]

>Are you calling North America "America", and then go on and call Florida "south America", as if there isn't such a place in the world as South America?

Depending on the geography class you took, and where, there might not be a "South America". Some countries just call the whole continent America:

Most North Americans are taught that there are 7 continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia/Oceania. In some textbooks, North and South America are combined into "America" and/or Europe and Asia are combined into "Eurasia", for a grant total of 6 or even 5.

I do not approve of your 7-continent view of the World, as if it was the only one.

[balthasar]

A Eurocentric viewpoint to combine South and North America. Its very obviously two continents from a geographical and cultural point of view.

[coldtea]

>Its very obviously two continents from a geographical and cultural point of view.

Culturally? Really? What's so different culturally between Colombia, Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and say, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala Costa Rica to warrant each set belonging to another continent?

[yousir]

As you are fully aware you are well within your rights to not approve. But if you call the whole continent America then surely its very southern part will not be Florida.

[coldtea]

The USA is also called America in short by most of the world. Not just the continent.

Sometimes languages use the same name for different things, and people can trivially disambiguate from context.

[khedoros1]

The way I read it, it would be better phrased as:

"In the southern part of South America, more or less equivalent to Florida", probably referring to the southeast side of that continent.

This map indicates that areas of Argentina's, Uruguay's, Paraguay's, and southern Brazil's climates would fit the description of "more or less equivalent to Florida": https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/World_K%...

[woliveirajr]

Thanks, that's exactly that.

[mc32]

Southern would work better than south. Proper place names which have cardinal pints in their names typically will use South and not Southern. So we have South Africa, South Australia, South Dakota. But southern California, southern South Dakota, etc.

[teh_klev]

The parent post by thowawaylalala already mentions Florida, so I think what woliveirajr means by "south of South America, more or less equivalent to Florda" is at a latitude in South America with the equivalent climate as Florida, rather than suggesting that Florida is geographically "south America".

[woliveirajr]

Exactly that. Considering we were talking about snow and ice causing cracks, I was thinking about the weather, not about culture, race, ethnic aspects, politics, government, food, or any other aspect...

[maxerickson]

They are referring to the region around Argentina.

The southern part of South America, a similar distance from the equator as Florida.

[mitchty]

America refers to The United States of America. Same as we don't refer to Mexico all the time as Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

I don't approve of getting upset over turns of phrase online. Principle of charity.

[yousir]

>America refers to The United States of America.

Well, that might be true for people living in the US but, and I might be going out on a limb here, it might not be so true for others.

[mitchty]

> Well, that might be true for people living in the US but, and I might be going out on a limb here, it might not be so true for others.

And for a comment referencing Florida, is it charitable to apply something for continents to your stated interpretation? Principle of charity says not.

Specifically who refers to America/Americans in English as meaning "People who live on the continents in North and South America"? Lets hear names not an allusion to "others".

I'm only aware of a rather vocal minority of South American students recently getting angry at the term America being attributed to citizens of the USA. But its really no different from my aforementioned Mexico example in Spanish. Their category error is trying to redefine America from its shorteneed form for USA, to some super continent association of "America". But it goes against a lot of existing usage in not only English, but other languages. [1]

I respect that you have a position here, but frankly its a silly way to try to redefine the word America as its been spoken in English for a long time to refer to a super continent of both North and South America.

Example Portuguese, America refers to the USA, and to both Continents, aka like in English have to figure out the context: http://www.wordreference.com/enpt/america

French, pretty much the same, only the continent is generally called out separately as continent américain: http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/america

German, closer to French/English here but separate in that they tend to refer to the "americas" as north middle and south america, which is in many ways more appropo: https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/america

Japanese, i'm not as qualified with my 3 months of learning japanese to comment on this but given the Kanji in use they're already separated: https://jisho.org/search/america

Etc...

Also are you saying that all of the societies and engineering societies such as The American Society of Engineers should be required to change their name as they don't allow people from Canada, Central America, and South America to join? At a certain point I just can't find this position on the word America to make sense. Its just a weird thing to die by the sword on.

[pbhjpbhj]

I refer to USA as that and its people as USAmerican or USian variously. America is a continent and whilst a good deal of North America is USA plenty isn't.

USA is a terrible name, it could equally apply to any country, Canada say, in the American continent formed from multiple states.

It is wrong to call societies only for USAmericans "The American ...". The whole thing supports the idea that the only Americans worth bothering with are USian, it's extremely pompous and self-agrandising.

You should get a proper name.

Perhaps if things work out in Korea they'll call themselves the United States of Asia ...

Re Mexico, there's no continent called Mexico, no ambiguity or appearance of narcissism attaches to not using the full title. It's not at all equivalent.

[mitchty]

> I refer to USA as that and its people as USAmerican or USian variously. America is a continent and whilst a good deal of North America is USA plenty isn't.

America is not a continent, its two continental plates roughly separted at Panama via the Carribbean plate. Can you point me to a recording of someone using this terminology in real life? USAamerican is pronounced as ooh sa American or what? I can't see this catching on. Or oooh ess ian either. I doubt the Canadians want to get lumped in as Americans even under this nouveau definition.

> USA is a terrible name, it could equally apply to any country, Canada say, in the American continent formed from multiple states.

But it isn't that at all, which segues into:

> Re Mexico, there's no continent called Mexico, no ambiguity or appearance of narcissism attaches to not using the full title. It's not at all equivalent.

I was using that as a parallel in that we don't call mexico by its republic name.

Words can have multiple disparate meanings, America tends to have indicated a shortening of The United States of America. Do you believe citizens of this country can't name themselves?

You also conveniently omitted what english speaking region you are from so I can't follow up on how wide spread your version of things is/n't.

[pbhjpbhj]

Someone else using the terminology, perhaps the first line of the Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas), or Collins (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/america)?

"USAmerican" - like U.S.A but with American replacing the A. Variations expected.

>America tends to have indicated a shortening of The United States of America //

To people who assume that it's the only place in America that anyone would talk about.

>Do you believe citizens of this country can't name themselves? //

How many current citizens chose that name; I'll go with none. If you asked the question "what should we name our union of states, one of several unions of states in America" I'd hope most intelligent people would think something other than USA was best.

I'm from the UK (which has a lot of stupid naming too, but that doesn't make USA a sensible name, bad naming elsewhere doesn't make this naming better). But for the purposes of this conversation that probably just counts as "not America" by which will be meant "not USA". /s

/rant

[yousir]

Time to diffuse this.

> I respect that you have a position here

Thank you. I appreciate you saying so.

> but frankly its a silly way

Yes, I was being silly. But only because if you bundle South America and North America and then go on to call the south of that super-continent "Florida", well, a globalist such as myself has to object.

[mitchty]

> Yes, I was being silly. But only because if you bundle South America and North America and then go on to call the south of that super-continent "Florida", well, a globalist such as myself has to object.

Fair enough, but it read more as being willfully obtuse if anything.

[teh_klev]

diffuse => defuse?

[madhadron]

This is why I always use US or USA, the citizens of which are properly referred to as gringos.

[MisterTea]

Look, Florida has this... reputation, okay. So what, maybe the GP was trying to wish it away like the rest of us. Let us have this one okay?