this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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To name a few:
Calling yourself Americans, after the entire dual continent. There are two continents and many other countries in the Americas, you know... [I know you know. And, what are you supposed to call yourselves, 'USAians'? 'Americans' makes more sense and is easier to roll off the tongue. But it's weird.]
Holding the door open for me. Smiling at me on the street. Those are sure signs of a swindler, but it's the norm in the USA. [I am not suggesting USA folks are swindlers, only that those actions are what swindlers in much of the world use. USA people are generally super nice and a genuine pleasure to be around.]
Turning right on red light. Red means stop. It's weird and confusing.
Edit: I added a third thing.
Edit2 in []
But we never use "America" to refer to North and South America collectively. You can say "the Americas", or just "North and South America". And there's no adjective that means "of the Americas"; you can say "North or South American". But just "American" unambiguously means "of the USA".
I've always wondered if disagreement over this comes from the fact that in some parts of the world, North and South America are considered to be one continent just called "America", whereas we consider them to be two separate continents. And we don't have a word for the pair of continents, any more than we have a word for Europe and Africa together. (I mean we do have "Eurasia", which kind of pokes a hole in the hypothesis, but maybe that's a special case because a brief glance at a map makes it clear it's pure fantasy to count those as separate continents.)
Yeah, I always wonder how often thereβs a need to refer to inhabitants of two continents together as a single entity. Like, if you say someone is South American or North American, that is never confused with being someone specifically from the US. When would those terms be insufficient?
i propose america squared