Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.

  • DarkThoughts
    link
    fedilink
    26 days ago

    I try to explain this to people…

    You mean US citizens. I’ve had “Americans” chime in on that as well, when I explained that for people who are not from the US, that “America” is not just the US of A but all of the Americas, and that Americans are not just people from the US either.

    • @Stovetop
      link
      English
      56 days ago

      Not just US citizens, but specifically the Anglophone world as a whole. I’ve been to other English-speaking country where citizens of the USA are commonly referred to as “Americans” (when they’re not called Yanks) while the continents are called “The Americas”.

      I also colloquially know that the name of the country in Japanese is simply “America” as well with its citizens just called “America-jin”

      The relevant Wikipedia article seems to have some interesting insights as to which major world languages opt for which options, but it doesn’t seem to be an overly long list of examples.