Re: Asimov Site

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

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:
> 
>> 2) is blatantly wrong -- America is the two continents, not some particular
>> republic.
> 
> 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 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.
 
And if "America" refers to the US, why doesn't "South America" refer
to Texas, Florida, etc ?  A lack of logic, isn't it?
 
 
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 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"....
 
-- 
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