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06-11-23 23:06 #6981
Posts: 62Originally Posted by Nounce [View Original Post]
I don't think there should be anything to fight about here. I'm saying that:
1) America is the name of a continent for people who come from countries that speak Romance languages (the six-continent combined-America model).
2) There is no continent named America for native English-speakers since we use the seven-continent model.
3) Native English-speakers typically understand "America" to mean the United States of America.
4) "Americano" in Spanish can refer to people from the continent of America (with an accent over the e) or it can refer to people from the United States of America, depending on the context and the speaker.
Do you disagree with any of these four points?
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06-11-23 15:26 #6980
Posts: 2922This is not worth fighting about
Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
I am taught to see it this way in my early Spanish lesson. Then I saw the correction happens over and over again in Facebook group too. Same thing with spelling Colombia as Columbia.
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06-11-23 09:40 #6979
Posts: 2415Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
Las Americas (SA + NA)
Feliz navidades ("Merry Christmas", plural though only one Christmas is meant)
Buenos dias
Buenas tardes
Interestingly, no such thing in Portuguese, except maybe for "as americas" in the historical sense.
Feliz natal
Bom dia
Boa tarde
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06-11-23 06:31 #6978
Posts: 62Originally Posted by Nounce [View Original Post]
Originally Posted by Nounce [View Original Post]
I do not think all the members on this board are from the USA. Again, I am pointing out that America is the name of a continent for people who come from countries that speak Romance languages, but not for native English-speakers. Different parts of the world use different continent models. Native English-speakers typically understand "America" to mean the United States of America. I can show you many, many examples of that.
I have seen America (with an accent over the e) used to refer to a continent in Spanish, but I have also seen Spanish-speakers refer to people from the United States of America as americanos, though the term could also refer to people from the continent of America.
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06-11-23 02:03 #6977
Posts: 2922Context
Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
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06-10-23 13:50 #6976
Posts: 207Not everything is a scam
Originally Posted by Nypher [View Original Post]
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06-10-23 06:58 #6975
Posts: 634From 2 years to 2 months
Originally Posted by SankarShetty [View Original Post]
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06-09-23 10:08 #6974
Posts: 1084Originally Posted by OldSchool318 [View Original Post]
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06-08-23 19:09 #6973
Posts: 62Originally Posted by JustTK [View Original Post]
This discussion is straying from the purpose of this message board, but I'll write something about the word "coger" in Spanish that should be useful to mongers.
The administrator would be justified in moving this discussion somewhere else or suppressing it, but I think this topic is going to come up over and over ("International" is in the name of the website), so maybe we might as well try to settle it now.
My explanation is long (Monger Longer described something shorter that I wrote as "verbal diarrhea"). I tried to give a shorter explanation, but it looks like this is a complicated topic that requires a long explanation.
JjBee62 pointed out that there is a Miami both in Florida and in Ohio and that the most popular answer isn't necessarily correct. If someone says he is from Miami and you assume that he means Miami, Florida, you could be wrong.
If someone says he plays football, he might mean that he plays American football (a game that originated in the United States of America, also known as gridiron) or he might mean that he plays a game that Americans call soccer. In writing "Americans" here, I am referring to people from the United States of America rather than people from the Americas region. I'll return to this topic later.
Let's say an American (again, I'm referring to someone from the United States of America) travels to England and says to an Englishman that he plays football when he means that he plays American football. The listener thinks the American means soccer because that is what football means in England (and most of the world). However, in the United States and Canada, American football is simply called "football. ".
Is the Englishman wrong or is the American wrong? The Englishman has the wrong idea about what the American plays, but it is because the American did not adapt his language to the conventions used in England. Was it wrong for the American to say that plays football? He does play football, and if he had said that in the United States of America or Canada, there would be no confusion. In England, however, he needed to say "American football" to communicate clearly because "football" in England means what Americans call soccer.
In discussing how language is used in different parts of the world, it might be more useful to think in terms of "how can I communicate clearly?" rather than in terms of what is correct or not correct. The same word can have more than one meaning. However, the conventional meaning of a word may be different in different parts of the world or in different communities. Meanings can also change over time.
Here is an article about the Spanish word coger: https://thebogotapost.com/cogiendo-coger/6449/.
According to this article, coger means "to fuck" in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the USA and it doesn't have that meaning in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Spain. However, a Colombian told me that she tried to use the word in Panama with the meaning that she wanted to catch a bus, and the person thought what she said was funny because it has a vulgar meaning there.
So, do I accept that people from the Americas region should be called Americans? What is important is not what I accept, but what other people accept. If I write "Bob is an American," I need to guess what someone else is going to think upon reading my sentence. If that person grew up in an English-speaking country, he will most likely think that I am saying that Bob is from the United States of America. If that person grew up in Latin America, then it is more complicated. He would probably still think that I mean that Bob is from the United States of America, but he might think that I mean that he is from the continent of America.
Also, if the person is from Latin America, there might be some kind of discussion about how people from the United States of America are egotistical for calling themselves Americans. That normally doesn't happen with people who grew up in English-speaking countries. I believe that mainly comes from the different continent model that is used in Latin America. If someone from the continent of Asia is an Asian, shouldn't someone from the continent of America be called an American? But there is no continent named America for English-speakers.
There is, however, a region called the Americas. Shouldn't we call people who live in the Americas "Americans?" It is important to note that the English language doesn't have a centralized authority for the English language like the Real Academia Espanola. We don't have a language designer saying things like, "the word American should mean someone from the Americas region and we could call people from the United States of America 'Americans' but we will pick something else because that term is already reserved for people from the Americas region. ".
At some point in time, people just started using America to refer to the United States of America and American to refer to people from the United States of America. There is no problem for English-speakers in using America to refer to the United States of America. There is no confusion. However, for Spanish-speakers, America has a different meaning: it means a continent. Since English-speakers refer to the United States of America as America, it is only natural for us to also refer to people from the United States of America as Americans. But what about people from the Americas region?
As you have probably noticed, we often need to have some way to refer to people from the United States of America. English-speakers have settled on calling people from the United States of America "Americans" and I kept referring to an American in my football example. I'm willing to call people from the United States of America estadounidenses or gringos in Spanish. If everyone else called people from the United States of America USAns and JustTK's made-up word were in the dictionary, I would use it, too.
As for needing a way to refer to people who live in the Americas region, that doesn't come up in conversation or writing nearly as often. Americans are not thinking, "if we call ourselves Americans, then what we will call people from the Americas region?" If I needed to convey the meaning that Bob is from somewhere in the Americas region, I would write it just like that ("Bob is from somewhere in the Americas region") rather than write "Bob is an American" because my guess would be that the reader would be thinking that I mean that Bob is from the United States of America if I wrote it that way. I might be willing to express the same idea as "Bob es americano" in Spanish because I think I'd have a better chance of conveying the meaning that Bob is from the American continent that way, but I have found that even Spanish-speakers often understand "americano" to mean someone from the United States of America.
It is not up to me to assign meanings to words (unless I'm making up a new word). I have to guess how other people will interpret words, and how they interpret words may depend on the context, the location, and / or their background.
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06-08-23 10:19 #6972
Posts: 5446Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
Is a Carolinan from North Carolina or South Carolina? How about a Dakotan? If someone writes they are from Jersey, you would probably assume New Jersey, but you could be way off. Miami? Florida or Ohio? Indiana? State or city in Pennsylvania? The most popular answer isn't necessarily correct. Sure, usually American refers to a citizen of the US, but if someone is confused, what's the harm in clarifying? It's worth noting that Colombians do not typically refer to us as "Americanos. ".
When I lived in New Mexico, I had Americans, from the USA, ask if I needed a passport to get into the US. True story.
In the context JustTK used it, he was correct. If Petro's policies are considered unfriendly to the US of A, but not to all the other countries in the Americas, it's not correct to say he's unfriendly to America.
If you had told the Romanian "USA", she would have immediately known where you were from. The same is true if you had said "New York. ".
Just my thoughts on the subject.
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06-08-23 02:34 #6971
Posts: 62Originally Posted by JustTK [View Original Post]
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06-08-23 01:04 #6970
Posts: 1775Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
Note. You don't need to say your a USAn, that was a bit of fun, but you could say " I am from the USA", or from Wyoming, or even North American. But whatever, I still contend its not correct to claim that Petro is not America-friendly.
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06-08-23 00:04 #6969
Posts: 62Originally Posted by Combo [View Original Post]
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06-07-23 23:37 #6968
Posts: 1749Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]
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06-07-23 20:37 #6967
Posts: 6416Who is "American"?
Originally Posted by Trim1 [View Original Post]