[Vampyr]

Yesterday I went through passport control in the US, and it was amusing to me that the very many multi-lingual signs used E.U. to mean the US in Spanish and French. Maybe this confusion has contributed to the recent European financial crises.

[kenberg]

Vampyr, on 2012-April-21, 22:37, said:

So what? Central American countries are also in North America.

I would not claim the Wikipedia to be the unchallengeable word on this, but I decided to look it up. I found:

Quote

Central America (Spanish: América Central or Centroamérica) is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast.^[3][4] When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent. Central America consists of the seven states of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Central America is part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through central Panama.^[5] It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, the North Pacific Ocean to the west, and Colombia to the south-east.

This agrees with my understanding, it agrees with the globe I have beside me, it agrees with my vision as I look at a map and think what portion would reasonably be called Central America.

I suppose that the demarcation has some degree of arbitrariness, so I suppose an argument can be made to divide things up differently.

Pluto is no longer a planet. OK by me. And if the geographers of the world decide Mexico is now to be in Central America I will cope. But I see no reason to decide on my own to place it there.

[gwnn]

Quote

Are Canadians and Mexicans American?

It depends.

[Vampyr]

kenberg, on 2012-April-22, 14:22, said:

I would not claim the Wikipedia to be the unchallengeable word on this, but I decided to look it up. I found:



This agrees with my understanding, it agrees with the globe I have beside me, it agrees with my vision as I look at a map and think what portion would reasonably be called Central America.

I suppose that the demarcation has some degree of arbitrariness, so I suppose an argument can be made to divide things up differently.

Pluto is no longer a planet. OK by me. And if the geographers of the world decide Mexico is now to be in Central America I will cope. But I see no reason to decide on my own to place it there.

You quoted my post above, but I never claimed that Mexico was in Central America, just that being located in Central America also means being part of North America.

[kenberg]

Fair enough. I had been talking about Mexico so I thought that context still applied. My error.

[Gerben42]

gwnn, on 2012-April-22, 14:31, said:

It depends.

Csaba you sound like a politician. We are having early elections soon in Netherlands, perhaps you want to run for some office?

[Bbradley62]

Mexicans and Canadians are not Americans, just like folks from Brooklyn and Queens are not Long Islanders.

[mike777]

Bbradley62, on 2012-April-23, 22:04, said:

Mexicans and Canadians are not Americans, just like folks from Brooklyn and Queens are not Long Islanders.

I dont know why but something feels wrong here...not sure what..........


but then I am midwestern so who knows....

clearly canadians are not american but we all knew that.....


but I think we can be nice and kind and let Pamela Anderson in.....but we do need to set standards....

[barmar]

mike777, on 2012-April-23, 22:08, said:

but I think we can be nice and kind and let Pamela Anderson in.....but we do need to set standards....

She's an American now -- she became a naturalized citizen in 2004.

[mike777]

barmar, on 2012-April-23, 22:35, said:

She's an American now -- she became a naturalized citizen in 2004.

so you have set the standard........ can disagree with bbo?

Not that I do.

[ggwhiz]

Bbradley62, on 2012-April-23, 22:04, said:

Canadians are not Americans

No kidding.

An exit poll of American tourists got the comment.... Canadians are so polite they say thank you to ATM machines.

A contest run by McLeans magazine asked us to fill in As American as Apple Pie = As Canadian as ? and the winner was "As possible under the circumstances".

[kenberg]

ggwhiz, on 2012-April-24, 08:48, said:

No kidding.

An exit poll of American tourists got the comment.... Canadians are so polite they say thank you to ATM machines.

A contest run by McLeans magazine asked us to fill in As American as Apple Pie = As Canadian as ? and the winner was "As possible under the circumstances".

Gets my vote!

[Hanoi5]

The whole continent is called America so all its inhabitants are americanos. Some people refer to the not-English speakers as latinoamericanos or suramericanos (but the last one leaves out the Mexicans and to some extent the people from Central America). It's a matter of politics, I suppose. People from the left will claim we're americanos and call Americans gringos or estadounidenses. Unitedstatian, maybe you should adopt that word...

In fact it is something weird, as many countries are called officially the united states of XYZ. So in a way the US stole the name from all americanos. Probably this reinforces the idea that they think (or know?) that everything below the Rio Grande is just their backyard...

[blackshoe]

Hanoi5, on 2012-April-25, 05:13, said:

In fact it is something weird, as many countries are called officially the united states of XYZ. So in a way the US stole the name from all americanos. Probably this reinforces the idea that they think (or know?) that everything below the Rio Grande is just their backyard...

Name ten such countries.

As for "stealing" the name, not if we used it first. And regarding your last point above, I found this article interesting.

[WellSpyder]

blackshoe, on 2012-April-25, 06:32, said:

Name ten such countries.

Hmmm, I can't immediately think of that many. But without straying too far off the topic of this thread there are the United States of Mexico, for instance. And I seem to recall hearing that the United States of Brazil was the official name of that country at some point.

[Bbradley62]

blackshoe, on 2012-April-25, 06:32, said:

Hanoi5, on 2012-April-25, 05:13, said:

In fact it is something weird, as many countries are called officially the united states of XYZ.

Name ten such countries.

Name 2.

[blackshoe]

WellSpyder, on 2012-April-25, 07:53, said:

Hmmm, I can't immediately think of that many. But without straying too far off the topic of this thread there are the United States of Mexico, for instance. And I seem to recall hearing that the United States of Brazil was the official name of that country at some point.

I don't know about "at some point", but Brazil is currently "officially the Federative Republic of Brazil", according to wikipedia. Mexico is "The United Mexican States", so I'll give you that one.

[WellSpyder]

blackshoe, on 2012-April-25, 08:51, said:

I don't know about "at some point", but Brazil is currently "officially the Federative Republic of Brazil", according to wikipedia. Mexico is "The United Mexican States", so I'll give you that one.

Also according to wikipedia, Brazil was the republic of the United States of Brazil from 1889-1967 - my geography teacher at school must have been a bit out of date because I'm not (quite) old enough to have studied geography before 1967. And apparently Venezuela was the United States of Venezuela from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Seems to have been quite a common designation on the continent of america, but perhaps names have gradually been changed to avoid confusion with another country on the same continent which still uses the name United States....

[barmar]

I suspect the reason for the designation is due to the history of colonization and consolidation in this hemisphere. Nations were formed by uniting numerous former colonies: the colonies become states, and the nations were referred to as "united states of XXX", where XXX is the name they've given to themselves as a group. The USA managed to usurp the name of the continent simply because we did it first (about 35 years before the Mexican War of Independence). Plus, I have a feeling that the colonies that became the USA were formerly known as "American colonies".

[mikeh]

PassedOut, on 2012-April-21, 17:52, said:

Yes, it is often a mistake to assume that words have the same meaning across languages.

Anyone who is a fan of Top Gear (the original UK series) will recall the hilarious Albania trip: one of their all time bests. Two of the terms they customarily use in their discussions of the merits of cars were, in Albanian, words for genitalia.

Btw, if you haven't ever watched the UK version of Top Gear, and have any interest at all in cars, this has to be the best show ever....while it rarely gives you any practical advice (unless you are having to choose which supercar you want to own....the show is often extremely funny because they spend a lot of time doing silly contests and challenges.

I once saw a US version, and it wasn't funny and it wasn't informative....it was awful.