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The Naming of America (2023)

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Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#31

Post by samatman »

meiraleal wrote: post #17
samatman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA, you mean?

Nobody would be taken seriously calling the US "America" in South America.

The name of our country is the United States of America. Sometimes we call it the US, or United States, sometimes we call it America.

Much as yours is called la República Federativa do Brasil, which you call Brasil for short. Do you ever call it the RF I wonder? Real question, I have no idea.

Whatever you call America, the country, in your language, that's up to you. The Chinese call us 美國, the few of us aware of that are not even slightly bothered by it. Your language, your rules.

You have no right, and no ability, to dictate to Americans how we refer to ourselves and our nation, in our main (but not official) language. We do not care what your name for us is, and we do not care at all what you think about how we refer to ourselves.

For the record, in America we do not think of the Americas as one continent, but rather, two. So Brazilians, as we style you, are South American. Canadians, Mexicans, and Americans, are North Americans. If we need for some reason to refer to the people of both continents we might say "people of the Americas" but this doesn't come up much, just as we might say "Old Worlders" to refer to the megacontinent of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The chip you carry around on your shoulder does you no credit at all. The notion that because we use a word in the name of our nation to refer to ourselves in some way denigrates the other inhabitants of the two continents, North and South America, which happen to share that word with the name of our nation...

That is 100% a you problem, not an us problem, and not a US problem. Get over it. Or don't.

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#32

Post by arethuza »

yulker wrote: post #29
jltsiren wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The name of the country seems to be the equivalent of either "United States" or "United States of America" in pretty much every language I can read. "America" is an informal name people usually understand, much in the same way they understand when you call the UK "England".

England is not the UK.

I think that's the point?

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#33

Post by blovescoffee »

gotoeleven wrote: post #25
meiraleal wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America being the name of the country isn't a problem, the problem is the people from this country calling Americans "latinos". Or Native-Americans, or Whatever-Americans because the only Americans are themselves.

The main reason people call themselves $HYPHENATION-americans is because they want some free stuff from the government for their particular $HYPHENATION

What free stuff do Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Asian Americans, get?

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#34

Post by dleary »

arethuza wrote: post #32
yulker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

England is not the UK.

I think that's the point?

Calling the UK “England” is a different class of error, though. England is a part of the UK.

Analogous would be calling the USA “Texas”.

Calling the UK “Britain” is a much more direct comparison.

United States of America -> America

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland -> Britain

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#35

Post by danesparza »

cjs_ac wrote: post #6

A less rigorous but more entertaining treatment of this topic is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfXoUaeLcDU

Map men! I love these guys. I have only recently discovered them, but thoroughly enjoy their back catalog of short educational (and humorous!) videos.

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#36

Post by rgblambda »

dleary wrote: post #34
arethuza wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the point?

Calling the UK “England” is a different class of error, though. England is a part of the UK. Analogous would be calling the USA “Texas”. Calling the UK “Britain” is a much more direct comparison. United States of America -> America United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland -> Britain

It's not helped when England, Britain and United Kingdom have been viewed as interchangeable terms by UK politicians, famous writers and the general public.

Boris Johnson: "If I am ever asked on the streets of London, or in any other venue, public or private, to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am, when I have done nothing wrong and am simply ambling along and breathing God’s fresh air like any other freeborn Englishman..."

Rupert Brooke: "If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England."

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#37

Post by rgblambda »

blovescoffee wrote: post #33
gotoeleven wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason people call themselves $HYPHENATION-americans is because they want some free stuff from the government for their particular $HYPHENATION

What free stuff do Jewish Americans, Italian Americans, Asian Americans, get?

Spare a thought for the poor Scots-Irish who didn't think to add American to their hyphenated identity. I'm sure they're missing out on so much free stuff.

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#38

Post by jmclnx »

>A black African discovery of America, it has been argued, took place around 3,000 years ago , and influenced the development of Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations

This is a new one on me. Maybe it could it have happened, but I very much doubt it. This seems to go back to the usual thing of "Native Americans were too dumb to build a civilization".

If anyone got to the Americas before people crossing the Atlantic, it would have been the Polynesians. That I could believe.

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#39

Post by thechao »

jmclnx wrote: post #38

>A black African discovery of America, it has been argued, took place around 3,000 years ago , and influenced the development of Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations This is a new one on me. Maybe it could it have happened, but I very much doubt it. This seems to go back to the usual thing of "Native Americans were too dumb to build a civilization". If anyone got to the Americas before people crossing the Atlantic, i…

This is due to the Olmec heads.

Re: The Naming of America (2023)

#40

Post by n4r9 »

> to hear Armorica, the ancient Gaulish name meaning place by the sea

This line gave me synchronicity shivers. There's a recent SMBC comic that's been linked a few times on HN recently: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/arthur. The other day it sent me down a minor rabbit hole reading about Brittany, where I stumbled upon this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany#/media/File:Britonia6.... I (a Brit) thought that "Armorica" sounds exactly like "America" and looked up the meaning: "place by the sea". I realised I'd never looked up the origin of the name America but this must be it. So I googled around and was disappointed when I found the story about Vespucci. Cool to know that it's still somewhat in dispute.

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