[whyoh]

>From a European perspective, American means from the continent America, and not specifically from the US.

I don't think this is true for most of Europe.

For at least three different EU countries that I lived in, America and American is used exclusively for "the US" and "person from the US". "Person from Mexico" and "person from Brazil" would be Mexican and Brazilian, not American.

And geographically, the continents are North America and South America, so North Americans and South Americans is used too, in that context. But I don't think I've ever heard Americans to refer to both North and South Americans as a group of people.

[yreg]

Yep, I'm from central Europe and we would call Canadian a North-American, but not American.

I get the argument against it, but this is how the language is used.