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by ReleaseCandidat 1601 days ago
> reduce ambiguity between the U.S.A and Latin/North/Central/South America,

And the continent 'America'.

Just for comparison: what do you think 'South Africa' (the country, not the region ;) should be called?

2 comments

In Romance languages, the continent is known as the supercontinent "America", but in Germanic languages (like English) and other languages that borrow from it call them the "Americas" as two continents "North" and "South" America. So, for people to bring it over as 'America' can sometimes be seen as pedantry instead of insightfulness.
> but in Germanic languages (like English)

Well, yes, in theory you could use 'Amerikas' in German, but nowadays that's mostly because of a bad translation. It actually is correct German to speak of 'both America' - 'beide Amerika' (in singular).

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Amerika

> So, for people to bring it over as 'America' can sometimes be seen as pedantry instead of insightfulness.

Of course it is pedantry.

Hah, when I hear "beide Amerikas" I think of political divide within the US.
South Africa? I would call it South Africa if that's what they want to be called. I definitely wouldn't call citizens of South Africa "RS Africans" or something unless they preferred that for some reason.