this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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In the English language, "America" is not a continent, "North America" and "South America" are continents. This also makes way more sense than any other system that considers Europe, Asia, and Africa to be separate continents, but lumps north and south America into one continent.
So you would say that Mexico is in "north america" and Peru is in "south america", but you wouldnt say that either is in "america" or an american country.
Peru is American. South American, but of the Americas nonetheless.
The US gets the word applied to itself because the name of the continent is actually included in the name of the country, hence the "United States of America".. which lends itself to the semantics of it all getting a bit sloppy.
But.. Argentinians, Brazilians, Canadians.. yup.. all American.
Yeah, they're basically exactly as depicted in alien movies — when alien invade the world, they only invade the USA because the USA is the only world they know and value.
Yet we refer to North, Central, and South America as "The Americas".
Exactly, cause it's not just one continent, it's plural.
Merriam-webster appears to disagree with you. "America" is according to it one of three things:
And that is already the American centric definition of the English word. So yes, "America" in English can mean both, the Americas but also either Southern America or Northern America separately, as a continent. Mind you what definition is listed first. So why shouldn't you say then that Peru is in America than?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/america
Worked for a multinational cooperation with co-workers from countries around the globe including south of the USA border, many of these colleagues can and do call themselves American.
You wouldn't say so but they do.
Yeah, definitely Spanish does things differently. At least according to wikipedia, most anglosphere countries teach the 7 continent model, while romance language countries teach a 6 continent model combining the americas, and Russia does 6 continent combining Eurasia.
Tbh, most people dont identify themselves by continent, anyway; they identify by country. Exceptions obviously exist (e.g., pan-africanism, immigrants from neighboring countries in a third country).
Yep. It's one of the eternal beefs between English speakers and Spanish and Portuguese speakers. Neither side has any actual evidence beyond which side they prefer.
(Canadians, for example, do not care about this. They are proud not to be American.)
Canadians be sharpening their elbows right about now.