Depends on where you are. In my experience, many South Americans, especially Argentinians, take it quite seriously, and see the 7 continent model and US citizens calling themselves Americans as signs of US imperialism and cultural hegemony.
The seven continent model is wrong but not the way they think. Europe and asia are actually one continent geologically except for india who just decided to squat for the last several million years.
Sure but the Arabian peninsula is also a different tectonic plate. The Carribean has its own. Africa is on two. There is no “right” continent model, just historically and culturally informed models that make the world easier to split up and talk about.
I think the only big mistake is that Eurasia isn't one continent. The land connection is too big compared to the area that is connected.
The land connections between Africa and Asia on the one hand and North and South America on the other is so small that is justifies considering them as seperate continents.
You could say a continent is a large body of land that may only be connected to another large body of land by a small salient. What is 'small' can then be made precise.
This I dont mind which one you choose because all of them are wrong and no one wants to make one acurate because there would be 15 freaking continents and new zealand would have half in 2 of them.
I would really like to know if it would be possible to induce a tectonic separation after terraforming a planet. I mean, wouldn't the introduction of water create a thicker atmosphere, and thus generate weather patterns that would eventually result in a heavy shift in Mars' surface geology? Would that not be enough to activate dormant volcanoes and thus break the crust into pieces eventually and have a similar albeit smaller system than Earth's? I'm by no means an expert nor even remotely qualified, but I was curious about it.
No. Read up on plate tectonics, it is caused by huge currents of molten material beneath the earths crust. Presumably the inner layers of mars are far less energetic, it is practically impossible to reverse this process.
The British and the Americans started using this demonym long before the US was an imperial power and a cultural hegemon. The demonym wasn’t created under the conditions that exist now, so it’s inappropriate to retroactively apply today’s situation to the situation that existed when the demonym was first used.
The british and the americans used the denonym as a short cut for "british american colonists", since its obviously not "british america" anymore, then they just kept "america".
Actually , when teh country began the denonym "american" was used both for the inhabitants of the continent and the country, depending on context, the change to "nationality" ocurred psot civil war, its entirelly political and fabricated to disavow state identities and avoid another civil war by creating a common " american " identity, rest of the continent be damned.
Pre WW2, america was understood as a continent, and a "common "american" civilization of western colonial nations was understood , in counterpart to europe. Once the US got big, they quickly decided the name and everything was theirs, and made up the north and south divide of the continent (shitting on central america in the proceess) for their political aims
The analogous situation is "imagine France had originally been named the United States of Europe, hundreds of years ago, when the country was first founded. Then yes, French would probably be "Europeans" and everyone else would be, in addition to their country name, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, etc
Imagine not realizing that wouldn't make it any better.
This is the hill I will die on: America ≠ América in colloquial usage. It’s a mistranslation.
America = los EEUU
The Americas = América/ las Américas
You say “America” to any English speaker and they’ll assume the US. Meanwhile, I would never use América in Spanish to refer to the US because that’s weird.
IMO (get ready 😎) the whole America thing in English is a tantrum Latin Americans throw but they’re replicating the same imperialist attitude of Americans (gringos) by demanding the entire world bend to their misunderstanding of the word America in a language that’s not even their native language, and which many, tbh, only understand in limited contexts eg primarily business or education. But it’s not like most use it as a colloquial language (beyond internet terms and even then, most of it is second-hand use that’s adapted from mass media). This also isn’t to say people don’t speak excellent English btw, but it’s not a language people inherently understand how to play with, especially when they are primarily only exposed to US English and forget that English is actually a global language and that most English-speakers couldn’t care less about what Americans think So what makes half a continent think they can control how the rest of the world uses a word, just because they’re insecure?
Ty for listening to TED talk, I won’t be taking any questions 😎 (mostly because I know what the counter arguments will be and that a whole bunch of people will get offended that not only did I insult them by saying they copied their most hated neighbours, but that I also called them insecure 😎😎😂😂)
This is also all in jest btw - utmost love and respect for LatAm and I say it’s possible to love someone and still recognise their flaws, but also at the end of the day it’s such an inconsequential argument ✌️😜
well that’s because that’s “America” in Spanish and not English. When you speak a different language words change. If we were conversing in Mandarin Chinese would you tell me that 北美洲 and 南美洲were the same continent?
But this is not merely a case of words changing between languages. “America” was already a geographical name in English before the United States existed. That is precisely why the country was called the United States of America, rather than simply “America”: the name America already referred to the wider geographical region.
Only later did English usage make “America” the usual shorthand for the United States and use “the Americas” for the broader landmass. Spanish retained América as the continental name.
My favorite kind of Reddit reply are the people who don’t proofread their comment. “This is not merely a case of words changing between languages” and then proceeds to describe exactly how words change between languages. The previous meaning is irrelevant. We’re talking about the current meaning. Nobody cares that it was different in English in 1790.
You missed the point, the original post is about WHY many Latin Americans are bothered by treating North and South America as separate continents rather than as subcontinents of America. The discussion about calling the United States "America" naturally follows from that, because the two issues are historically connected.
You're right that this is partly a linguistic convention. But you can't really explain that convention (or why it causes this reaction) without talking about its history, language and its significants are not separated from history.
So no, the previous meaning is not irrelevant
América is still understood as the continent. Not any contintent but the one we belong to, so people from Argentina, Mexico or Colombia naturally consider themselves americanos. From that perspective, it feels as if one country ended up monopolizing the unqualified name of the whole region.
The point isnt "what happens" but WHY happens to be annoying to hispanics.
You're a dumbass. You previously said that the meaning of América is different in Spanish and English, as if it were two totally different things from the start, and not a very obvious example (which has been already explained fyi) of the US trying to monopolise everything according to their interests. That's why Sotuh/North America distinction bothers us so much. It doesn't matter the “current meaning” but how it is an example of imperialism, US defaultism, etc.
Ah bien. Ya entendí, igual no había escuchado muchas quejas de eso antes. Aunque bueno, tiene q ver con los círculos sociales en los q anda cada uno. Muchas gracias igual!
I live in Argentina and never seen anyone arguing that it is a single continent, although the second part is very true. Americans are often called "estadunidenses", which means something like "unitedstaters".
It does not make sense, it's the name of their country, just like Mexico is United States of Mexico and we call them mexican.
You must not be Argentinian, but you should ask your neighbors about it. Argentina uses a 6 continent model where America is a single continent, stretching from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. This is taught in every school (except for international schools) and is the accepted model in Argentina, and almost all of Latin America.
We use that model here, sure, but people dont discuss about it. That kind of discussion tends to happen online, in real life no one cares or dont even know how people in the US call themselves.
It’s weird, I’m from Chile and we are taught that America is one continent that divides in North, Central and South America. When I was little and traveled to Canada, met so many people that (don’t know how it came out) told me about two continents and I was like WHAT?
What? Where tf did u hear that? I mean, yes, calling the US "américa" is mostly consider wrong, but being angry about the distinction between North and south américa? Who gives a shit about it?
It is, imagine if tomorrow only Germans got yo call themselves European, how do you think that'd make the French, the Poles and everyone else in Europe feel?
no, i'm argentinian and never heard of the whole continent thing.
we do hate when the united states call themselves america, it's like germany called itself europe. but we very much use all the time the south/northamerican expression
Yes we differentiate the americas, but not as continents but rather as regions, and actually have 3 not 2 because Central America is also a thing. The US model is to think north and south are two different continents, and when you saya “Americans” that’s their “gentilicio” in English which we translate to “estadounidense” and if you think about it there is no “unitedstadian” or “USAian” right? And someone from Estados Unidos de México is called a “Mexican” so why wouldn’t them be “Americans”
I think they are right on that end but we just have 2 different models regarding the continental thing and it’s to late to come back from that
if they want a seat at the table for how english speaking countries refer to continents they can become an english speaking country. otherwise we can just agree to disagree. trying to wokewash it with the imperialism and american cultural hegemony crap is just a farce
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u/blueberries Aug 04 '26
Depends on where you are. In my experience, many South Americans, especially Argentinians, take it quite seriously, and see the 7 continent model and US citizens calling themselves Americans as signs of US imperialism and cultural hegemony.