[SllX]

> I will normally call it “the US”-the only time I ever call it “America” is when speaking to our 7 year old, because I know she knows what “America” means but I worry “the US” might confuse her; but with older children (such as our 12 year old) and with adults I say “the US”, because calling it “America” feels incorrect to me.

It’s not wrong nor incorrect to call this an individualistic choice, and I mean, I’ve always perceived Australians as fairly individualistic people, but perhaps you feel differently? I’ll defer to you if that’s the case, it’s not a point I wanted to argue about, nor is it intended to be derogatory or disrespectful.

You are going out of your way to refer to America differently in different contexts though, and claiming that one variation feels incorrect. I stopped short of calling you specifically a contrarian because you didn’t express yourself like one, but that’s still a personal hang-up. It might be a shared personal hang-up with some of your cohorts, but it’s not one that any other Australian has ever confided in me, especially unprompted, and I don’t go around prompting people for terminological preferences on this subject. Most Australians I know or have known just call America “America” unless it’s like, the news.

[skissane]

> unless it’s like, the news

Yes, but that’s part of the point: in the most formal registers, “America” is incorrect-if you’re a lawyer drafting a legal contract, or an academic writing an article for a peer-reviewed journal on international relations, you’d be much more likely to write “the United States” (or “the US” for short) than “America”-and if despite that you wrote the second rather than the first, it is likely someone else would “correct” it in the editorial process

So there is a very real sense in which “the United States” is more formally correct than “America”. But it is of course context-dependent: using the most formally correct term is likely pragmatically incorrect if your audience is a classroom of average seven year olds

Also, formality of speech isn’t just determined by context (a legal contract or a peer-reviewed article versus speaking to a primary school class)-it is also determined by the background of the speaker (and audience)-people who come from more educated/professional/higher SES backgrounds tend to speak more formally even when speaking informally; the same is true of higher IQ people and higher AQ people (AQ=autism quotient, measuring autistic traits)

[SllX]

I understood you the first time, mate, and I've been very patient with your exceptional disposition on this subject.

That said, your personal choice in vernacular doesn't really override that when someone refers to America in the English-speaking world, that refers to the United States of America. It might be different in say, the Portuguese-speaking part of the world, but that's not really my business.

[skissane]

I think we’ve been talking past each other here - because you are talking about receptive language (understanding what other people say), and on that topic I said at the start the same thing as you are saying now - whereas I’ve been talking about expressive language (what you choose to say). A lot of words/phrases/usages a person might view as formally incorrect (or at least deprecated) but nonetheless have no trouble understanding what is intended when someone else says them.

[rbanffy]

While we (outside the US) use “American” to refer to something or someone who comes from the US, AFAIK, only Americans call the US “America”. And even on the “American” part, more specific language, such as “US-based”, “US-resident”, is often used.

[skissane]

You are right but it is more complex than that… e.g. as I mentioned earlier, (as an Australian) I will usually say “the US” not “America”, but in certain contexts - talking to younger children for example - it will be the other way around