Re: Asimov Site

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 31 Aug 2000 15:08:54 +0200, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)
wrote:

>In article <39ad56f2.56507439@24.9.0.17>,
>Jeff Blakeney <CUTblakeney@home.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 30 Aug 2000 18:39:48 +0200, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 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....

I already answered that question in this section that you quoted from
me:

>> 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.

If you want to tell people what continent I live in you have to
specify North America.  If you just say America, people will wonder
whether you meant North or South America.  By the way, Central America
isn't a continent or a country.  As far as I can tell it is just a
region.

>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.

So you too call people from the US, Americans.  Most people do so I
don't understand why we are even discusing this.  It only makes sense.

>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.

Are you proposing that we all start calling them USians?  How about
people from the US?  But you've already said that "citizens of the US"
is too clumsy so that latter certainly won't work.

Personally, neither works for me.  :-)

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

Because South America is the name of a continent in the southern
hemisphere and doesn't relate to the name of a state in the country of
the United States of America in the continent of North America which
is in the northern hemisphere.  They are completely different places.

There is only one country in the world with the word America in its
name so we call them Americans.  No lack of logic there.  :-)

>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!

If I didn't know where they lived, I would try to not call them
anything.  I might speculate about where they are from based on their
appearance (ie. do they look Mexican?).  However, I would prefer to
ask them where they are from rather than run the risk of insulting
them by calling them something they are not.

Case in point, most Canadians will be insulted if you call them
American.  North American is okay.

>If that guy had lived in Russia or Turkey instead, but you didn't know
>whether he lived in the European or the Asian part, you could still
>have called him an "Euroasian"....

I have never used the term "Euroasian" so I probably still wouldn't do
that.  I'd probably do the same thing I mentioned above.  Speculate or
find out for sure.

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