Talk:America (disambiguation)/Archive 5

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Obviously refers to the United States

The usage of "America" to refer exclusively to the United States is so obvious and omnipresent, the only possible reason to oppose it is pure and simple anti-Americanism. It is only in the last 10 years that the ridiculous objection to the use of "America" as meaning "The United States" has even arisen.

I challenge anyone to find a reasonably popular English-Language source that actually uses the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States. And I want a source that actually uses it in an article, not simply a dictionary or encyclopaedia that brings about every obscure or imaginary use of every word.

If you were from Brazil, would you say "I'm from America"? No. If you were from Canada, would you say "I'm from America?" No. Can anyone even come up with a rational English sentence that uses "America" in any capacity other than "The United States"? And would that sentence convey its intended meaning to *any* reasonable reader? No, I don't think it would.

Obviously there's a lot of sentiment against it, but it's more an indicator of the profound anti-American bias in Wikipedia editors than any sort of reality. The longer things stay this way, the longer Wikipedia looks idiotic, and the more obvious the anti-American bias becomes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sephalon1 (talk • contribs) 05:09, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I will reiterate this. Under no circumstance does anyone who speaks English natively use the word America to describe the North American and South American continent. Nobody who uses the English language natively used the term American to refer to anyone other than a citizen of the United States. What is so hard about that? So can I go on the Spanish wikipedia and complain that you do not get to word something this or that way? No. You can't object to a language. The neutrality of this crap is severely in question here. Someone flag neutrality again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.47.249 (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikpiedia's of all languages are supposed to reflect a worldview. No one nationality owns a wikipedia and gets to suppress dissenting views just because it happens to be the largest speaker of some language (a language it didn't even originate, yet somehow feels a right to). Go be an ugly american elsewhere.65.0.96.247 (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. Egypt is not called Egypt in Arabic or Egyptian, Japan is not called Japan in Japanese. We might as well change everything here to Mandarin since that's what most people speak! --Aizuku (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with the 2 comments above. This page should be moved to America (disambiguation) and "America" should redirect to United States. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I never refer to the USA as America and I cringe whenever I encounter other people doing it. Not everyone is like you all say (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 07:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC))

You are not a reliable source. - SudoGhost 12:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

If you'd like some examples of English-language sources that actually use the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States, do a Google Books search for the phrase "Columbus discovered America". Deor (talk) 12:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The argument isn't that "America" is never used to refer to anything other than the United States, it's that the overwhelming number of English speakers use "America" almost exclusively to refer to the United States. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

To determine primary topic, the issue is, "What are readers looking for when they type in "America" as a search term?" This is something you can check by googling America -wikipedia. Kauffner (talk) 16:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We don't know what someone entering "America" in the search box might be looking for, and it seems a slightly odd way to search if one is looking for information about the United States. If someone is trying to find information about America (John Fahey album), for instance, this dab page will help them more than a redirect to United States. Deor (talk) 16:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

"We don't know"? That makes it sound like it's some kind of deep mystery that needs to be pondered. We have the technology. Check the link I gave. No, they aren't looking for the John Fahey album. But quite a few are apparently looking for "America, f*** yeah!" The top two results may be boosted by their URLs. Result No. 3 is the Lonely Planet guide for the U.S. This DAB is set up assuming that the word refers to the countries in North and South America other than the U.S., but this topic does not appear in the Google results. Kauffner (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I can even drop this if the article put The United States as the first selection and mentioned the obvious truth such as.. America, referred to the United States by English speaking peoples or something. Point is, a lot of non-native english speakers putting in their two sense here and this is why this discussion is even here. If left to the people of the UK, America and Canada and so on it would automatically redirect to the USA article. Which is not a neutral way of attempting to relay fact. I guess the Welsh have to call it Wales now because most of us don't call it Cmyru. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.41.239 (talk) 12:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Speak for yourself.65.0.96.247 (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I challenge anyone to find a reasonably popular English-Language source that actually uses the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States
In the sentence "South America" (e.g. "Bolivia is the highest and most isolated country in South America" [1], BBC) the word America does not refer to the United States. Fridek (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That's because "America" and "South Amercia" have different meanings. The challenge refers to "America" used by itself. Try harder. - BilCat (talk) 20:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm from America and I live in Chile. USA is not America. Fitmoos --186.107.109.247 (talk) 15:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

This is none sense! America means America. Chile is not America, it is Chile. When did this none sense start, I've only noticed people doing it 2 years ago. --Aizuku (talk) 02:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Your comment is the nonsensical one. Get over your pompous nationalism, USA doesn't own the term any more than any other country located in the American continent. - 186.124.178.12 (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Five years ago here in Wikipedia [2] an Argentinian[3] copied a New York Times link in which they use the word "America" meaning the continent.190.96.40.120 (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Second attempt I challenge anyone to find a reasonably popular English-Language source that actually uses the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States
In the article Ancient America - The Aztec, the Maya, the Inca the word America does not refer to the United States. Fridek (talk) 21:23, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Fridek, but I'm afraid "Ancient America", "Latin America", "Central America" and "Mesoamerica" (all mentioned in that article) are different things from "America" all by itself with no descriptors in front of it. Try again! Don't give up!  ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 08:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

If "America" means the United States... then "South America" means "South of the United States". Actually... South America means "Southern part of the American continent" and United States of America means "States that are united in the American continent"--181.64.70.45 (talk) 08:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I know that this doesn't really prove anything and you probably won't acknowledge it as valid, but the challenge had been met already with this source at some other related talk page. Diego (talk) 21:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

What confuses me is this whole "United States" thing. I live in America, not the United States. Why do people keep referring to my country as "the United States"? The United States are south of the Rio Grande. I live up north. I've visited the United States, but I've never lived there. Anyway, the United States are just a subset of Mexico anyway. The "United States of Mexico" means those states that are united within Mexico, and doesn't include places like Nevada, California, or Arizona. So I wish the people of the United States would stop calling their country "Mexico". Mexico is larger than just the United States. Readin (talk) 04:33, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Even worse, I've heard there's a move within the United States of Mexico to change their official name to just "Mexico", further insulting Mexicans who don't live in or aren't from that country. It should be changed to the country's correct name, New Spain. - BilCat (talk) 09:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey, haven't you heard of those people outside the United States of Mexico, people that that don't even live there, and that still call the whole thing just "Mexico"? How preposterous. Diego (talk) 09:33, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is preposterous. But language is like that. So when you hear someone not from United States of Mexico call it "Mexico", be sure to correct them. Tell them that people born in New Mexico, Nevada, California, or Arizona are Mexicans too! - BilCat (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather remind them how there are two groups of people with two different usages of language, and that it's impolite to tell either of them that they're using their native language wrong, and the other way is the only correct one. Diego (talk) 10:08, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

BilCat, I guess you're being facetious, but in reality there's a slightly better chance it will someday return to being called "Meshica" than to "New Spain". Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 15:56, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I must disagree with your sentiment. As an Australian and a native speaker of English, "America" refers to the entire continent (e.g. Argentina is a country in America). Though I don't deny that some people use "America" to refer to the USA, not unlike how they also use the terms "England", "Britain" and "The UK" interchangeably, this does not make it geographically correct. Octopus Gardener (talk) 06:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

And Australia and New Zealand are both in the continent of Oceania. - BilCat (talk) 07:30, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Octopus Gardener, as an Australian, you may perhaps be familiar with a publication called the Sydney Morning Herald. They published an article in the past few days with the headline "In America, even the zoo elephants get extra helping". In case there is any doubt as to what they meant by "America", the second sentence quotes an employee of the Toledo Zoo saying, "Look at what percentage of the US population is currently obese." Evidently there are native English speakers in Australia who understand the word "America" differently than you do. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:06, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

another unsigned IP rant

America is not a "country" it's a Continent. The problem is that the USA doesn't have a real name, it's more of a reference to an "action". The union of states that derived in the formation of the country known as The United States of America. Since the citizens need a term, and to be called United Statian sounds weird, the term "American" is frequently used to refer to the people born in the United States. The truth is that a Mexican, a Canadian, a Venezuelan, et al. are as American since they are also part of the continental America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.190.161 (talk) 02:06, 8 October 2013 How can a Mexican from Mexico call himself American? He would have to be an American citizen and live in America, which he does not as Mexicans are citizens of Mexico and not America. Latin Americans need to stop imposing on our culture and language.

"America" is not a continent. You must be referring to "The Americas", which are two continents: North America and South America. (En Español: Norte America y Surte America). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 04:58, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps if I put it this way, in a language you understand: En Español, Los Estados Unidos son una pais en America (una continente). En Englais, Los Estados Unidos son "The United States of America" o "The United States" o "America" - todos de los formas son corecto en la idioma Englais, que es diferente del Español porque son diferente idiomas.

Now stop telling me that the language I speak is "wrong". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 05:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

It actually IS wrong if you are from the US but that won't stop you from writing Color instead of Colour would it? Because that is how it has been told to you and every other notion is not even worthy of consideration. 83.39.80.34 (talk) 14:47, 15 November 2013 (UTC)ggcc

Once again, you are telling me that the language I speak is "wrong", which I find offensive, and I demand you apologize. Which language is the "correct" one, according to you? French? Spanish? Chinese? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 21:24, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

When Iranians cry "DEATH TO AMERICA!" outside the old US Embassy site in Tehran, do you think they're talking about the Americas or the United States of America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 17:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Untitled

In the English language, "America" always refers to the United States of America. North America and South America are together referred to as "The Americas". People from the United States of America are referred to as "Americans". This is true amongst all native English speakers all over the world.

Seriously, people. I don't like calling myself a "United Statesian" in Español, but I do it anyway because that's how you say "American" en Español. "America" has exactly ONE meaning in ENGLISH (not Español, not Alemán, not 中国的, not العربية, not Kijomba, ENGLISH). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 07:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

FAQ?

I think this page needs an FAQ. Since many non-British/Irish/Oceanian editors are not reading past discussions, and therefore assuming nobody calls the continent 'America' in English, it would be useful to inform them they are wrong. Rob (talk) 12:09, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Show me proof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you also want proof that the sky is blue? Well Wikipedia doesn't. Rob (talk) 18:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Ahahaha you don't have any proof

No one "calls the continent 'America' in English" because America isn't a continent in English. - BilCat (talk) 20:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

To Brits, there is a continent called 'America'. All British editors agree with this, and obviously, only their opinions matter as they are the only people who can make a accurate judgement on this without sources. Unless you can provide a source that states this is not the case, then as per common sense, the statement stands. Using WP:NOR to object, is using Wikipedia policies to prevent something being included that is obviously accurate, which as per WP:IAR, is not advised. Rob (talk) 00:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"All British editos agree with this" is obviously an overreach. Here in Cambs, we scorn on using the dictionary from the other place, so find the dictionary definition of "The Americas" to be "North America and South America, taken together"[4]. Old Brits who still dream of the Empire use the archaic sense, but I don't think I've ever seen a Brit under 50 say America when they meant the Americas. WilyD 08:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and what "all British editors" agree with is irrelevant anyways, it's what reliable sources use that matter. This isn't anything new from Rob, he's still using this "I speak for everyone that's British" fallacy, despite being shown multiple British sources that use America to refer solely to the United States and the Americas to refer to the continent, shooting a hole in his theory that he speaks for everyone in Great Britain. I'm certainly not suggesting that sources only use America to refer to the country, but Rob's suggestion that it's only his way that's right (and only his opinion that matters) is nowhere close to accurate. - Aoidh (talk) 08:53, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

"Unless you can provide a source that states this is not the case"

Here you go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2004/09_september/alistair_cooke.shtml— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 23:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be sarcasm? It's hard to tell, as I've encoutered the "only the opinions of Brits matters" attitude in many Brits before. - BilCat (talk) 01:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, the British DID invent English, so their version of English is the correct one. Same goes for European Spanish and Mexican Spanish. Don't tell me you don't need to conjugate "vosotros", you lazy hicks.

And they were dead serious. And most of them are dead, too. - BilCat (talk) 01:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Or if not dead, no longer editing on WP. - BilCat (talk) 01:06, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

"America" is ambiguous

Is Hawaii in America?
Even for an American, it is not simply "Yes". Neither is it simply "No".
Did Columbus sail to America? Historical usage should not be discounted, but emphasized, because a comprehensive encyclopedia is primarily an historiographical work. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:48, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Over 200 years of usage isn't historical? Encyclopedias are full of words and definitions that are younger than that. - BilCat (talk) 00:03, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

All usage is historical. But even today, is Hawaii in America? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:16, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Depends on the context. - BilCat (talk) 03:22, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Hawaii isn't in North America, but it is just as much a part of America as Alaska and American Samoa and technically Puerto Rico and technically West Virginia. Of course, when you say "America", I assume you're referring to the United States of America, not the two separate continents of North America and South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.164.161.151 (talk) 02:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Richard Amerike/Amerigo Vespucci

Richard Amerike and Amerigo Vespucci should be placed/moved under people. Richard's expedition to North America predateded Amerigo's by 2 years. Both continents were named America (richard's last name) due to errors in reconciled maps/documents and Amerrisque Mountains becoming synonymous with gold. Otherwise South America would have been called some Vespucci (amerigo's last name), if he had consciously named it. --173.51.29.188 (talk) 01:28, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

No. Aside from the Richard Amerike issue being a fringe theory, DAB pages don't list forms of the word like that. - BilCat (talk) 01:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

America

I think you are missing Central America in this article... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:6580:4C7:6982:8505:4D06:2131 (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• In normal English usage, Central America is part of North America. WilyD 16:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Why Americas?

Why do we get a redirect and why does it pretend like it's common for English-speakers to call North and South America as America? Honestly, we are on English Wikipedia.Correctron (talk) 05:25, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

America is not a redirect. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:35, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm assuming he's refering to Americas (continent) being used instead of the direct link to Americas. Per the hidden note: "it is being used to generate statistics about which page is more popular. see the talk page for more info", which also applies to US (country) being used to point to United States. He apparently cane here for more info, but those sections have been archived. The relevant discussion is at Talk:America/Archive 4#Proposed solution. As to why it's listed as if it's common usage in English, the pro-America-is-a continent folks actually wanted it listed first in the list, purportedly in "alphabetical order". It took a long battle just to get a consensus to list it second, by order of most common usage. - BilCat (talk) 11:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Order of first two links

The first two entries are links to United States and Americas. Which order should they be placed in? The country is just a subregion of the continent, suggesting the continent might be listed first, but it could instead be that more people search for the country. 86.133.243.146 (talk) 01:09, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

• Both are equally visible on the very first sight, at the top, outside of sections or other formats. It is a bit pointless which one gets to go first, so I would use the alphabetic order. Cambalachero (talk) 01:42, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
• The usage for America meaning the Americas is seldom used by reliable sources, and as the previous discussion showed, the only time the Americas redirect used specifically for this disambiguation page got anywhere near as many views as the United States redirect is when it was being artificially inflated to try to match the more frequently viewed page (that discussion took place around July 15-19). The United States is a subregion of the Americas, that's true, but that doesn't mean the Americas should be listed first as if America is used used anywhere near as frequently to refer to it, since that's the context the disambiguation is using and is how the two should be organized. The most commonly used meaning for the term needs to be listed first on disambiguation pages, that's what they're for, and there's no question what almost all sources mean when they use "America". Wikipedia reflects usage, it does not correct usage, and I don't think anyone can seriously argue (and back up the claim) that most sources don't mean the United States when they say America. - Aoidh (talk) 02:18, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
• Because this is a disambiguation page, we should do this based on what people are looking for. Looking at the current statistics of the redirects to the United States[5] and the Americas[6] it is indeed apparent that the link to the United States is about 3 times more popular than that to the Americas. Therefore I think it is fine as-is. (the United States first and the Americas second) -- Lonaowna (talk) 12:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: It has been discovered that the user that started this discussion has been opening several RFC at many different pages; this one among them. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Numerous (mostly unnecessary) RFC's opened by IP. I don't have a strong preference anyway on the order, so this discussion may be ignored or archived; being a perennial discussion and all that. Cambalachero (talk) 12:32, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

North & South America

[7] A simple edit to Wikilink to North America and South America was reverted with reference to WP:MOSDAB, the first line of which states:

“ Disambiguation pages ("dab pages") are designed to help a reader find Wikipedia articles on different topics that could be referenced by the same search term, as described in the Disambiguation guideline. Disambiguation pages are not articles; they are aids in searching. ”

The wikilinks I added were very much an aid to searching for and disambiguating the difference, I don't see how that WP:MOSDAB justifies a revert here? WCM_email 16:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

• That just illustrates what happens when you stop reading after the first sentence. Continue on down to the MOS:DABENTRY section, which says, among many other things:

“ Include exactly one navigable (blue) link to efficiently guide readers to the most relevant article for that use of the ambiguous term. Do not wikilink any other words in the line. ”

R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Kudos for your ability to pick out an element of a guideline to support your line, let me throw back a policy WP:IAR and ask the very simple question was the edit you reverted an improvement or not? WCM_email 17:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Not in my opinion. Anyone who clicks on the link to Americas can very easily find the articles about the two continents. Saving readers one click to find some information that almost everyone in the world already knows is not enough of a benefit to outweigh the disadvantages of cluttering disambiguation pages with extraneous links. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:20, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and citing WP:IAR in this instance isn't what WP:IAR is for. The edit was not, in my opinion, an improvement precisely for the reasons the guideline exists. The guideline exists for a reason, and the consensus that established it cannot be circumvented by simply citing WP:IAR for lack of any relevant rationale. - Aoidh (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

MOS:DAB?

Not following guidelines for unsubstantiated reasons such as 'it doesn't make sense', is daft. We assume the reader knows what they are looking for. We don't need to be as clear as dedicated articles on the subjects. The guideline exists so that disambiguation are consistent in how they present articles. It's confusing to present articles in different ways on different disambiguation pages.
Placing part of the name outside of the link when appropriate is fairly standard for disambiguation pages. See United Kingdom (disambiguation) for example. You can alternatively phrase it 'United States, officially the United States of America, a country...' if you really think it's going to confuse readers who already know what they are looking for.
Additionally, having 'The' before 'Americas', but not before 'United States' is more misleading then simply omitting 'The' from both.
You just create more problems by not following the guidelines.
Rob (talk | contribs) 10:59, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

• I see you're not familiar with this topic,or the page history, but these choices have been made and tinkered with a lot, to ensure the page is as clear as possible (and to the extent that we can, complies with NPOV, which is an enormous problem when it comes to the the word America, see American (word) and so forth). It would behoove you to familiarise yourself with why it's been hammered out this way before trying to blindly apply the MOS without regard for the goal of writing an encyclopaedia. Changing the page to be less functional for no reason other than a poorly written guideline recommends you do something as a default unless you have a reason not to is not a good decision. The 'the' in 'The Americas' is very different from the 'the' in 'the United States of America', the former really being a part of the name, while the latter ain't. It simply doesn't make sense to list The Americas as Americas, as "Americas" is not a thing that exists in English, and as such seeing "Americas" is likely to confuse people. This is a particularly severe problem as people searching for America when they mean The Americas are typically not great English speakers, and so deliberately obfuscating what's going is more problematic than it might be in other contexts where it's likely to be easier for the readership to puzzle out the information you're trying to hide from them. (In fact, that Americas is at Americas rather than The Americas is also a fault of blinding applying the MOS where it significantly degrades the encyclopaedia, but is a rare enough case that it's hard to address)
• Beyond this, it should be clear why the United States is linked. Although it's obvious to most of us Anglophones, there's a significant minority who claim confusion, that it's simply wrong, etc. It's not really true that the official name of the States is the United States of America - to the extent that an official name exists, it's probably just "United States". A long, detailed discussion of all this nuance is not really appropriate for a disambiguation page - rather, the entry "United States of America" makes clear what they page is, is a relatively neutral phrasing, and is sufficiently short so that those of us looking for the warships or albums or whatever don't have to scroll past pages and pages of unnecessary information.
• Each page has it's own challenges, and guidelines are just that - guidelines. Where they strongly conflict with the goal of writing an encyclopaedia, you need to step back and ask why a guideline, which explicitly says that common sense exceptions apply to it, should be followed when it's damaging to the encyclopaedia and there's no apparently upside to following the guideline. WilyD 07:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think following the guideline in this instance is 'damaging to the encyclopaedia'. 'The' is not part of the name 'Americas'. For example, a sentence such as 'The Antarctic, Arctic and Americas...' is perfectly correct. I was involved in the last major move discussion. But anyway, my comment was merely advice, and I understand these matters are subjective.

Less relevant, but also...

'people searching for America when they mean The Americas are typically not great English speakers'. English people are generally pretty good English speakers, and from my experience, English people usually refer to the landmass as 'America' when the context is clear, but reliable sources from England do not. Hence there is much support for keeping 'America' disambiguated, but not a lot of evidence. In the previous discussion on the matter, most editors opposing the move were from England, or were secondary speakers. Referring to secondary speakers as 'not great English speakers' is quite rude. When learning another language, cognates are usually preferred, and 'America' is a cognate to 'America' (es), 'Amerique' (fr) and 'Amerika' (de), while 'Americas' is not, and is quite unique to English. Additionally, many editors here don't realise that much of our audience is secondary speakers. People from across Europe use the English Wikipedia as it is more reliable then other encyclopaedias. If in European English, 'America' is commonly to refer to the landmass, then we should take this into account. Bare in mind, the use of the term 'America' to refer to the landmass is accurate English, and pre-dates contemporary use referring to the United States. Just because it's less common doesn't mean it's incorrect.

Regards, Rob (talk | contribs) 12:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

'The Antarctic, Arctic, and Americas...' is really awkward English, because you're trying to pillage the 'the' for the Americas from the first, normal usage would be 'The Antarctic, Arctic, and the Americas ...'. Beyond that, it's not rude to say someone isn't great at speaking English if they are not. I'm not a great French speaker - it's not rude, it just recognises what is. (But a good enough speaker to note that 'The Americas' is not unique to English, quand on parle français, on peut dire 'les Amériques' ou 'des Amériques' pour 'the Americas' parce que 'Amérique' est souvent 'les Étates'). Using America to mean the Americas isn't exactly wrong, but competent Anglophones avoid it unless they're trying to make a point (or the context demands it) because they're know that it's confusing. I can say prove to mean test, which is perfectly correct English, but I don't, because I know I'm going to confuse my audience. For this page, I don't think there's any dispute over both America and the Americas being mentioned as possible dismabiguation targets (though there is constant dispute over which order they should go in), but the page also needs to be succinct to allow for quick disambiguation, written neutrally, but also make it clear why each entry is included, and be grammatically correct, to prevent confusion. Where the MOS doesn't interfere with those goals, we should follow it, but in this instance, where it does, a little common sense needs to be applied, as the MOS notes in the template at the top. WilyD 16:57, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how 'Americas' requires 'the' more then 'Arctic', but then, I'm not a linguist. Maybe you're talking shit, maybe you're not.

According to my French SO, 'Amériques' is sometimes used to collectively refer to what the French regard as 'sous-continents de l'Amérique'. It's like saying 'the Koreas' rather then 'Korea'. The term is used in a different context. Of course, the terms 'Americas' and 'America' aren't completely synonymous in English either. For example, 'there is a canal between the Americas' is not the same as 'there is a canal between America'. There is probably an equivalent to 'Americas' in many languages for this purpose, however my point is that 'the Americas' hasn't taken precedence over 'America' like it has in English.

In England, using 'America' to refer to the landmass in context is not uncommon, or incompetent. Probably why our neighbours use this term when speaking English. Conversely, they all speak with American accents because they're 'easier' apparently...

Regards, Rob (talk | contribs) 20:56, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, most francophones I have known are Quebecois (and Quebecoise), so the cross talk between Canadian English and Canadian French might influence my perception of the commonness (although the Louvre organises some of it's collections geographically, L'Afrique, L'Oceanie, Les Ameriques, so it's at least not unknown in France). Certainly using 'America' to mean 'the Americas' happens in England, though my experience living here is that it's mostly old conservative men who still dream of empire who do it. (i.e., they're doing it to make a point. And if you read the rants here from Latin Americans about the use of America to mean the United States, most of them (if not all) know full well how "America" is used in English, and are trying to make a ?different? point). Only someone who doesn't speak very good English would think you can say "America" and assume it would even occur to your audience you might mean 'the Americas'. Anglophones, and second (third+) language speakers with decent skill recognise that without context, listeners are going to take "America" to mean "The United States", not "The Americas" (and the context is usually history - "Columbus discovered America", things of that nature). And they're going to expect an encyclopaedia entry to be at The Americas, not America. But that's not really the point. Even if some people will be able to parse out that by "Americas" we mean "The Americas" which are also sometimes called "America", not all are, and we shouldn't make navigating this page a challenge, but as easy as possible. WilyD 09:31, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

The Latin Americans have a very good point to make. America, Amérique, América, Ameryka, Amirika, Amerėka, Amerike, Ameriko, Αμερική, Америка, Амерыка, Америке etc. are all diverse linguistic formulations of the original German word Amerika, which names the continent which the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci made known to Euopeans. Therefore, all linguistic formulations of "Amerika" must naturally have the same meaning, without exception. For the English formulation of "Amerika" to have a different meaning than the other linguistic formulations of the same word would be incredibly stupid.

America existed long before the United States came into existence and included not just British America but also Spanish, Portuguese and French America ― and there were 19 colonies in British America, not just 13. If that were not the case, the title of Thomas Jefferson's 1774 work The Rights of British America would have made no sense. The colonies invited to the so-called "Continential Congress" didn't even represent all of British America, let alone the whole continent of America.

Those delegates then went on to arrogate ― take or claim something for oneself without justification ― the words America and American to themselves alone. The arrogance of this is clear when one recalls that neither Columbus nor Amerigo Vespucci ever laid eyes on the territory of the United States but instead sailed to South America, the Caribbean islands and Central America. The idea that America is a place which neither man ever laid eyes on but excludes the places they did sail to is clearly arrogant ― and an insult to those of us who live in the other 34 countries in America. It's not only arrogant but absurd too: if North Africa is in Africa and South Asia in Asia, then consistency requires that North America, Central America, South America and Latin America are all in America too.

"The Americas" are parts of America, just as "the Canadas" were parts of Canada, "the Germanies" were parts of Germany and "the Koreas" are parts of Korea. For this reason, common but incorrect usage of America to mean the United States should not be followed.Epikuro57 (talk) 16:48, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Therefore, all linguistic formulations of "Amerika" must naturally have the same meaning, without exception. For the English formulation of "Amerika" to have a different meaning than the other linguistic formulations of the same word would be incredibly stupid. Seriously?!? You realize that cognate words in different languages tend to diverge and do not necessarily retain the same meaning over time. older ≠ wiser 16:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that's quite an extraordinary claim, and I would be very surprised if there were even a fringe RS which could back up this claim. Wikipedia uses what reliable sources show, not what our wishful leaps of logic may conclude. - Aoidh (talk) 02:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'm completely serious. I didn't say that misuse of words wasn't common, on the contrary I'm quite aware that the English forms of thousands of Greek, Latin and other words are routinely misused. That doesn't make it any less wrong to misuse those words however, a wrong remains wrong however common it may be. The fact that Anglophones are habitually too lazy to look up the correct meanings of words does not excuse anything.

There are no mental gymnastics by which North A and South A could cease to be parts of A or Pan-A could cease to mean the same thing as All-A, so the US founders' arrogation of the word to their country along was ignorant and wrong. However many Anglophones might kowtow to such arrogance, it's still wrong.

Try this thought experiment and maybe you'll understand. Suppose that a few English-speaking states in one part of Africa formed a federal union, called it the United States of Africa and claimed that Africa nonoww meant their country alone. Suppose further that lazy Anglophones went along with this shift in meaning, and Africa became used to mean something other than Afrika in German, Afrique in French, África in Spanish, etc. and African became used to mean something different than afrikanische, africain, africano, etc. That's the kind of shameful arrogance and stupidity you're defending.Epikuro57 (talk) 23:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Try reading (and comprehending) the article on cognates. Languages diverge naturally. There is no reason to get your prescriptivist panties in a twist. older ≠ wiser 01:07, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Your French SO and your general observations of England are not reliable sources.

• Here's an article from today's Le Monde, in which it is written: "Les élections américaines de mi-mandat (midterms) sont rarement une sinécure pour les présidents en place." "The American mid-term elections (midterms) are rarely an easy task for presidents in place." They are referring to mid-term elections in the United States. [8]
• Here's an article from today's BBC News that says "Are these the first people in the US to have Ebola? No, a small number of American aid workers who contracted the virus while abroad have recovered after flying back to the US for treatment." Here, there is no question about the link between the US and the use of the word "American" as the answer immediately follows the question. [9]
• Here's an article from Asahi Shimbun, the largest circulating newspaper in Japan, analyzing the 2012 U.S. presidential election. They use the kana word アメリカ, which is literally pronounced "Amerika," to refer to the United States throughout. Example is the concluding sentence: "今回の選挙の意味は、政策論争でもなく、景気論争でもなく、アメリカ政治の構造的な変化を明確に示した選挙であったことだ" "The meaning of this election is neither a policy or economic debate, but an election that clearly showed the changes in American politics." [10]
• Here's an article from Der Spiegel (front page article) which uses "Amerikaner" to refer to the US struggle against ISIS. [11]

"America" and "American" is used by all four of the major news organizations in the UK, France, Japan, and Germany to refer to the United States. They can and do use United States, États-Unis, 合衆国, and USA (Germans keeping it simple) as well, but they use America interchangeably to refer to the country, not the continent.

Now, to be fair, I have found that in Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (the non-French Romance Languages) it generally refers to the continent and not the country. But the idea that this is universally true across all languages is incorrect. TempDog123 (talk) 20:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)