Re: Asimov Site

["Kelli Halliburton" <kelli217@crosswinds.not>]

"Paul Schlyter" <pausch@saafNOSPAM.se> wrote in message
news:8olld6$161$1@merope.saaf.se...

> > Actually, being Canadian, I'd like to say that I do not live in
> > America.
>
> So where do you live then?  Not in America -- so it must be in Europe,
> Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica or Oceania, because there are no
> others to choose from....

"North America"

> > I live in Canada which happens to be in the continent of
> > North America.  I prefer to be called Canadian but I won't object to
> > being called North American.  However, I will strongly object to being
> > called American.
> >
> > Canadians call people from the United States, Americans, so Americans
> > are not the only ones who call them that.  It has been my experience
> > that pretty much everyone calls people from the United States,
> > Americans.  When I lived in Germany and travelled around Europe I was
> > sometimes asked if I were American so even people who live in Europe
> > call them that.
>
> There is no good replacement word for "Americans" -- the only one I can
> think of now is "Citizens of the US", and that's too clumsy to use as
> an everyday word.  Therefore I too say "americans" when I talk about the
> citizens in the USA.
>
> However there *is* a good replacement for "America"(=USA):  "The US".
> It's shorter both to pronounce and to write, and it leaves the word
> "America" free to be used to refer to the continent, not one of the
> countries there.

Both continents already have their own names: "North America" and "South
America."

> And if "America" refers to the US, why doesn't "South America" refer
> to Texas, Florida, etc ?  A lack of logic, isn't it?

"Southern America" does in fact refer to that area.

> Finally: suppose you meet someone whom you know live in either North,
> Central or South America, but you don't know which.  However you do
> know he doesn't live in the US.  What do you call him?  He's
> obviosuly not a european, asian, african or australian.  And since he
> doesn't live in the US he's not an american either.  Then, what IS
> he?  You could of course say "North American, Central American or
> South American", but that's a REALLY clumsy expression!

"From the Americas"

Really, what's so hard about this?

Especially for a Swedish Scandinavian EUian European Eastern Hemispherian
Periarctic Northern Hemispherian.