193
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by valveman@lemmy.eco.br to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

Well, everybody born in the american continent is technically "american" too, including Central and South America. Is there a specific term in english for these people?

Edit: Thanks for all your answers, especially the wholesome ones and those patient enough to explain it thoroughly. Since we (South Americans) and you (North Americans) use different models/conventions of continent boundaries, it makes sense for you to go by "Americans", while it doesn't for us.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] nixcamic@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Language rules (in English at least) are descriptive not prescriptive. They try to explain why Americans are called Americans, not determine what they're called. They're called Americans, whether or not it's logical, or the ideal descriptor, or fits with other names, that's what they're called.

Also most English speaking countries don't have an "American" continent, they have North and South America as separate continents, so you would say someone is North or South American to refer to the continent, not just American. Similar to how some people consider Eurasia a single continent but very few people would identify as Eurasian.

[-] racsol@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 months ago

When referring to the entire continent, I've heard "The Americas" in English.

Just a reminder: Central America is another division of the American continent.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Um

AKSHUALLY

It's debatable that North and South America are separate continents. I prefer the continental plate system but some countries literally teach that there is an "American" continent that includes both landmasses.

They also typically merge Europe and Asia, which is absolutely the right thing to do regardless.

The reason you have this disagreement is that there simply isn't a good, concise definition of "continent," and because at the end of the day it only matters for semantics and racism.

So the number of continents in the world is between 5 to 7, all debatably correct, depending on who you ask.

Possibly even 4 if you want to get particularly spicy and say any large, connected landmass is a single continent, merging Africa, Europe, and Asia into a single entity.

Which is also a more valid take than "Europe is its own continent because white people live there."

Edit: I forgot to mention the Indian homies are more deserving of a continent than Europe, thanks to having their own tectonic plate.

Tl;DR the world has 4-8 continents, but it is typically taught as anywhere from 5-7, it just depends on how actually consistent you want to be with your rules for what defines a continent, and 7 is just straight up the scientifically worst option unless India is recognized as a separate continent from Eurasia.

[-] nixcamic@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah that's kinda my point haha. Continents are made up and don't mean anything. If you're going by plates then there's dozens of continents.

this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
193 points (87.3% liked)

No Stupid Questions

34309 readers
1968 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS