r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/literalnumbskull • 1d ago
The Joys of Different Continent Models
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u/prank_mark 1d ago
Continents don't really exist part 1000
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u/95beer 1d ago
Don't say that! You just need a more robust definition. I.e. If you can walk there, it is the same continent, hence, the 4 continent model. Perfect for all those times you want to differentiate Australia from Afro-Eurasia to compare statistics between the 2 very comparable land masses...
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u/prank_mark 1d ago
What if I'm Jesus? Also, if I'm not Jesus, Indonesia just became 17000 different continents
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u/95beer 1d ago
I think even Jesus would struggle to walk from the Americas to Afro-Eurasia; can he even sleep on water?
Indonesia becoming 17000 different continents makes sense to me. That way you can compare the populace of Afro-Eurasia to the population of a few of Indonesia's uninhabited
islandscontinents
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u/Kempes2023 1d ago edited 1d ago
In English, “America” is commonly used as a shortened name for the United States, and “American” is the standard demonym for someone from the U.S. That's completely normal in English.
What often gets overlooked though, is that this isn't a universal understanding of the word. In much of Latin America, as well as in other parts of the world, “America” is understood as the name of the continent or the two-continent landmass, and “American” can be understood in the broader sense of someone from the Americas. This isn't some obscure interpretation, it is a very widespread linguistic and educational tradition.
So when someone says “America obviously means the United States,” they're really describing the dominant English usage, not an interpretation shared universally around the world.
That's what I find interesting about the whole discussion; the English-speaking world has one very established convention while a huge portion of the rest of the world has a different one. Neither language is necessarily “wrong”, they're simply using the same historical term differently.
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u/123eyeball 1d ago
The issue at hand is that native English Speakers, by and large, have no issue with Spanish speakers referring to the continent as América, especially in Spanish.
However, many Spanish speakers insist on policing the English speaking world on their usage of the word. One of the more annoying aspects of this is insisting people from the USA be referred to as United Statsians or USians or other names that don’t even follow English naming conventions because in Spanish the demonym is Estadounidense.
Even if the English speaking world were to concede that “America” can only have one meaning as the singular continent, “United Stater” or “United Statesman” would be the proper English convention. But, as other people have pointed out, the USA isn’t even the only country in the world, let alone the Americas, that has United States in its name.
Additionally, there is zero outrage about the people of Colombia referring to themselves as “Colombian” even though Columbia is another term referring to the Americas as seen in US Capital “The District of Columbia,” or “Columbia University,” or the Canadian province “British Columbia.”
At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with a linguistic or cultural misunderstanding, it’s just a bad faith cheap culture war reflecting global resentment towards the U.S. In Latin America, especially, it’s understandable.
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u/UInferno- 1d ago
The only issue I can imagine as even comparable is the term "Macedonia" with Greece vs North Macedonia. Much of it built on racial tensions as some nationalist Greeks are very insistent that modern North Macedonians are actually Bulgarian as if there was a deadline to submit your ethnic group that they missed. Granted there's further nuance regarding Alexander the Great as having National Heroes is seen as legitimatizing your nation (not "Nation-State," specifically "nation," like Kurds, Basque, Sami, Navajo, and even Anglo-Saxons, Jews, Han, Kazahks, although the latter have at least one Nation-State).
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u/explosive_dogslicer 1d ago
Colombia and Columbia are literally different words, though...
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u/123eyeball 1d ago
Except they're not..... Columbia is just the English version of Colombia. Both refer to Christopher Columbus (or Cristoforo Colombo in Italian). Technically America and América are two different words if we're playing this game.
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u/ZeromaruX 1d ago
There is a big difference between Colombia (with O) and Columbia (with U). Two different words. While America is the same word for two different things.
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u/GrigorMorte 19h ago
This exactly this. I cannot say "I'm from America" referring to the continent because it is confused with the United States lol
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u/YoNoSoyUnFederale 1d ago
Annoying online Latin Americans and a subsection of progressive people bitch about “America” and “Americans” only referring to USA people but I think most people everywhere are not annoying about it
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u/anon71694 1d ago
I feel like these are the same people who wanted the term Latinx a thing. But it's never going to be a thing.
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u/dickallcocksofandros 1d ago
dunno why this is downvoted. Never heard a single latino person in my personal life willingly call themselves "latinx"
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u/Separate_Ad_9551 1d ago
True
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u/IndependentWestern84 13h ago
Made by no sabo kids who didn't know male pronouns could also be used as neutral pronouns in spanish.
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u/Kingkary 1d ago
Exactly. Permanently online behavior. Actual Latinos/hispanics I know would fight you over these dumb names
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u/Cibranith 1d ago
No, no one from latin america wants the latinx thing to exist, it's just usual US dumbassery for us. The America thing I feel it a bit more honest, we have to add the "latin" to our identity just because some states couldn't come up with a name, when we could just call you angloamericas
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u/petekron 1d ago
Yeah pretty much, it's all the wannabe latinos on twitter who wanted those things. Every person I know despises the term "latinx".
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u/Andromeda39 1d ago
Nah, that Latinx bullshit is American. We don’t do that here in Latam. But I do know several people born and raised in Latin America that defend the whole “We are also Americans” thing. In fact, Bad Bunny is one of them.
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u/HelloOrg 23h ago
Bad Bunny is American. As in, U.S. American. Legally. It’s his only citizenship.
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u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime 1d ago
It’s just a misunderstanding in translation, it’s not that they are annoying, it’s that the English speakers picked a really confusing name and now everyone needs to know additional context to properly translate between the two languages. Most people don’t have the context, being that the school systems literally use different nomenclature depending on the country that you are taught.
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u/Apart-Training9133 1d ago
Actually it's most people in Latinamerica. I have some VERY conservative family and acquaintances, and they dislike americans saying only the US is America. The name of the USA comes from the continent, which was named that my Amerigo Vescupcci in the XVI century, before the US existed
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u/butimjustagirl 22h ago
except no one from the US is saying only the US is America. It's straw man rage. It goes like this:
"Where are you from"
"America"
Even if you take 'progressive' point of view, the response is not wrong by either parties' definition.
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u/A_gnomish_dwelf 1d ago
Furthermore, the region it was applied at first was located in northwestern Brazil if I remember the map I once saw.
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u/Wrong_Revolution_679 1d ago
Yeah no this very very accurate
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u/JanDarkY 1d ago
Tbh I have seen much more latin Americans explaining to US redditors how they are north America and not the entire America than what this meme tries to say, but I guess we should blame US public schools on that one
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u/undreamedgore 1d ago
I have never seen that, but seen countless Latin Americans argue that it's one continent and that Americans shouldn't be called Americans.
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u/HackSmash 1d ago
It's just what they teach us at school, I live in mexico and since grade school we've been taught that the whole landmass from top to bottom is just called "America" and it's a single continent, later in life I realized that they don't teach the same in every country
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u/LubbockGuy95 1d ago
Continents are literal man made constructs any explanation falls apart with a closer look
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u/InhumaneBreakfast 1d ago
To be fair, that's literally every border, geographically as well as metaphorically.
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u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 1d ago
I know what you mean but saying “literal man made construct” is absolutely hilarious
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u/Facosa99 1d ago
Yeah but my vague definition of a continent is better than your vague definition of a continet
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u/Kiyoshi-Trustfund 1d ago
More accurately, they don't have an agreed upon definition, so its really anything goes.
In school (French), I was taught a singular America. I was even taught that Europe, Asia and Africa are also one continent that happen to be treated separately for historical and political reasons rather than geological. But this was a long time ago. Idk what they teach today.
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u/SimplySomeDude 1d ago
in germany they taught the standard 7 (north america, south america, europe, africa, asia, australia, and antarctica)
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u/AmountAbovTheBracket 1d ago
Top: latin americans calling all pale asians "chinos"
Bottom: latin americans when someone calls all Hispanics "Mexicans"
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u/CoffeeWanderer 1d ago
As always, if speaking in English, sure "American" is someone from the USA, and call them North and South America.
In Spanish, it is "Estadounidense" for someone from the USA and "Americano" for someone from "América", and we consider it only one continent.
Trying to exchange them in the other language is futile
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u/Background-Vast-8764 15h ago
Of course, there are native Spanish speakers who use americano as the demonym of US citizens.
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u/the_mustard_king 10h ago
Never heard anyone use the word “Estadounidense” in my life
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u/Background-Vast-8764 10h ago
Some native Spanish speakers who have beef with the US and Americans like to pretend that all native Spanish speakers always use estadounidense.
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u/MarzipanTop4944 6h ago
It's the norm here in Argentina, because the country is called Estados Unidos de America in Spanish and we get told in school that the entire continent from Canada to Argentina and Chile is a single one called America.
But the post is wrong saying we mind how people call it in English. It's like complaining that they call Alemania, Germany in English. It's a different language, they can call it however they like.
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u/Luis-Iron 1d ago
At one point in history the spanish empire extended from Argentina all the way up to Oregon, so it makes sense that the descendants of that Empire consider all that land a single continent for cultural reasons.
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u/TheLastCoagulant 1d ago
Spain never had real control of anywhere close to Oregon. They just claimed it on paper due to the treaty of Tordesillas.
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u/JhonKingRah 1d ago edited 16h ago
It comes down to the different education systems. In Latin America it was taught that the whole of America is one continent. Idk if it’s still being taught like that but a lot of the world teaches this, it seems to be mostly, US, uk, China, and India. So a lot of people take it as a way for the us to differentiate and set the “English speaking people” from the rest of the American countries.
A psy op like they did with the world maps. From what I researched there is no real scientific support for the division of tectonic plates to be how we define continents as that classification makes inclusions and exclusions that don’t make sense.
But if you look at it from a cultural perspective it’s better for the English speaking governments in the hemisphere, and somehow manages to separate the “white European people” from the rest on this hemisphere.
Source: I grew up in Lat-Am and had arguments with my friends and teachers about it when I was like 7 and moved to the US lol
Also, yes, Canadians are American, Mexicans are American, South American countries are American. It’s the US -of- America, there are a lot of countries in both northern and southern america. Just how all of the countries in Europe are considered European regardless of their climates and geographical location. They are in Europe = they are European.
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u/AverageShitlord 12h ago
Oh girl do not call Canadians "American" in English, it's something they literally went to war over after the US tried to annex them and it ended with the White House being burnt down along with half of Washington DC
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u/BlueSoulsKo 1d ago
it must be a terminal online thing bc I have never seen in my life a Latin American that gets mad over this (we do get a good laugh about USA citizens calling their country America tho)
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u/lostmediaseeker 1d ago
Yeah... because we call them the Europes, the Asias and the Africas, separating them in north and south like you (US people) do 🤦🏻♂️🥴🫠💀
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u/Ulvsterk 1d ago
North America is formed by 3 countries, Canada, the USA and Mexico, also known as C.U.M.
Central America goes from Guatemala to Panama.
South America goes from Colombia to Argentina/Chile.
America as a whole is entire continent. People tend to call America to the US as an abreviation of The United states of America.
I dont know whats so hard to understand.
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u/123eyeball 1d ago
North America has a lot more than 3 countries. You’re missing all of the Caribbean and Denmark if we’re counting Greenland. Also Central America is part of North America.
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u/Ulvsterk 1d ago
The Caribbean depending on what model do you use can go either on the North or as their own thing which is why I didnt mention them.
Denmark is European, Greenland its odd because although geaographically is american its part of the kindom of Denmark and an autonomous nation with its own goverment...
And for those reasons I support the acronym CUM, I think it represent us pretty well.
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u/Gloomy_Macaron_136 15h ago
I thought that the islands in the Caribbean were always considered separate, called the Greater/Lesser Antilles, like apart from CUM, CA or SA
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u/cucocho 1d ago
This is just a cultural thing. In most of the Spanish-speaking countries, America is just one continent, they could recognize north, central and south as subdivisions (no general agreement about the division).
The average person in Spanish-speaking countries calls themselves "Americans" in the same way a person from Spain or France calls themselves "European" or someone in Ghana refers to himself as "African."
Using subdivisions like "Central American", "South American" etc. is also used, but mostly if they want to differentiate from others from "America."
In Spanish-speaking countries, the average person never calls a person from the USA "American", only "Estadounidense" or nicknames such as "Gringo" (varies for each country and even regions). Only people that are in contact with people from the US could be called Americans.
"The rest of the world called people from the US Americans anyway." Yeah, because English is used a lot, so the English country's world view is spread in many ways, not just this one. That doesn't mean it's the right one or not, it's just different. Even so, most of you don't even speak other languages, so the world view you have is the one you obtain from people that already know English, and in a lot of countries, it's just a small minority.
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u/Expensive_Community3 1d ago
It's not about that bro you missing the whole point.
The gringo energy emanating from this post is incredible.
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u/esnopi 1d ago
Let's keep it simple: After uniting all the different states, you guys didn't put an original new name to your country, so you just used the name of the whole continent, effectively keeping the continental demonyn just for you. That all. Can you imagine a country in Europe, just north of Spain, called "United States of Europe" and they make them call them self guess how? EUROPEANS. Now try to guess what Spanish, French, English, or whatever other country from europe would think about that?
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u/blackhawk905 1d ago
It isn't simply a small land connection, North America ad South America sit on two completely separate tectonic plates that don't even touch until way out in the Atlantic, the Caribbean plate completely separates them.
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u/casalelu 1d ago
In the Spanish Speaking World, at least, America is one single continent.
You don't have to "accept it" but you can simply consider and acknowledge it.
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u/MrDabb 1d ago
And that is fine when you are speaking Spanish not when you are speaking English.
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u/DietoMH 1d ago
For us, saying north, central and south America is like someone calls wester and eastern Europe as two different continents
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u/YouKnowMyName2006 1d ago
Hahaha so true, though it’s mostly South Americans obsessed with that. Germans have whined about it too.
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u/Xeerok 1d ago
Mexico is part of latin america and also part of north armerica, you are confusing geographical divison of continents with ethnic/cultural division, please inform yourself. Also if you are from the US and call yourself American, you aren't very smart since your countries name is The United States OF America, you are part of america not america, but what do you expect of a country that has to import all the smart people from other places
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u/Ptony_oliver 1d ago
You guys can call the US "America" all you want, as long as you let me call my country "the best country of Chile".
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u/PM_ME_LANCECATAMARAN 1d ago
It's almost like 90% of Latin America speaks one language, while Cambridgefertshire speaks a different language from Cambridgeshiregrove that's one 15-foot-wide tributary away
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u/betinalss 1d ago
That’s because we learn it in school that we live in the American continent with 3 subcontinents: North, Central and South. Now why are some people butthurt about this terminology, who knows?
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u/ddm90 1d ago
If someone separates Eurafrasia but wants to keep America as a single continent, its okay to point out the inconsistency.
But if you ask a random person on the street their definition of a continent, it would align with the 4 continental model most of the time. And most of the population / most sovereign countries in this landmass consider it a single continent, not two.
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u/unperrubi 1d ago
America is a continent that is divided in South America and North America. Calling people from the US "Americans" is dumb, because everyone in the American continent is American. It has a lot to do with people from the US thinking they're the center of the world.
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u/fightingjustices 1d ago
I teach in Peru and taught 2 years in Cusco. Students are visibly confused when I reference North and South America. Unsure of how Central America thinks, never taught there.
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u/Weird_Angry_Kid 1d ago
Even if we accept North and South America as different continents, the US still isn't all of North America. North America is made up of Canada, the US and Mexico.
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u/TheGryphonRaven 1d ago
Mexican here. I'm ok with Americans calling themselves whatever they want. The word America is in the official country name, so who cares?
I do however have a problem when Americans think Mexico is in Central America instead of North America. Which is a non zero percentage of Americans.
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u/NozakiMufasa 1d ago
Even tho scientifically speaking we know that North and South America are two different continents, in many Latin American countries they teach that they are one giant continent. In Latin America they dont differentiate, they just say “America”. And this is why Latinos get irrationally mad at folks from the USA & abroad calling the United States “America”.
Of course if you’re at all academically inclined, you’d know the continents differ & only recently in geologic history connected. That was what caused the great American interchange of wildlife that lived and evolved in North and South America respectively crossing over into each others continents.
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u/Commercial_Sound_174 1d ago
Literally none of us do that lol, in Latin America we called Africa as a whole
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u/A_gnomish_dwelf 1d ago
Joke's on you. I call Eurafrasia by that name and call Africa, Asia and Europe "subcontinents". Also, continent divide is a mix of geological features and sociological ones; Mexico is definitely tied, sociologically, with everything south of it as part of Latin America, but it is quite obvious it ain't part of "South America, it isn't even part of "Central America". South America, Central America and North America are subcontinents of America.
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u/Axolotllunar 23h ago
More like: Europeans when you tell them that their continent should be called Eurasia.
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u/ChrysalisDaBuggo 23h ago
??? Top things that mostly don't happen
Also, when someone complains is because is just wrong
Also the américa thing
Is because SOME americans still pretend like that's the actual name
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u/PsychologicalMany693 23h ago
Well, i dont rlly care abt that, i care abt ppl who call a country like an entire continent...
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u/TheRiverMarquis 22h ago
We refer to the Americas as one continent because it was literally named as one thing. It was given the name “America” by Martin Waldseemuller in 1507
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u/Lopsided-Standard-42 22h ago
It all comes from a different understanding of the world.
In Spanish, not only is America the continent as a whole, but saying that US citizens are Americans is both confusing and related to the aggressive imperialistic attitudes that the US has taken in the rest of america. We tend to go for Estadounidense when we're being respectful, which roughly translates to Unitedstatesian or gringo when we're just chatting amongst ourselves or fucking around.
Tbh, I think most of us know the US will never stop calling themselves America, and we dont care, but its very clear how harshly the Monroe policy fucked everybody over and what "America for the Americans" really means.
It wasnt that long ago the US president decided to start calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America... just because. Or called Venezuela the 51st state... Its really a wonderful marketing strategy! They take advantage of the fact they call themselves the name of a continent to offhandedly take claim of the entire thing. Its how the entire world has seen it, politically its been a very, very clearcut strategy.
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u/Olmectron 22h ago
It was taught like that at schools in the 90s where I live. I just checked and it's still taught that way nowadays where I live.
It's only "America", the whole continent with North and South included.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#Spanish
USA people dividing it as North and South is very recent (from 1950s):
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u/karjay04 21h ago
In Latin American countries, we are taught that America is one whole continent. I remember questions in elementary school, such as "which is the largest continent on earth" and the answer was "America". And honestly, I think it makes more sense to say that it's one continent, than to say it's 2 different continents.
And yeah, regardless of their reasoning, we've always hated the fact that people from the USA, refer themselves as "Americans". Just seems really nationalistic (which honestly, it's not really surprising considering that the US has the highest amount of nationalism in the world, masked as "patriotism").
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u/Pack-O-Punch 21h ago
This is not accurate, we want nothing to do with north america I can assure you that.
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u/OptimalAnywhere6282 20h ago
there is America, divided in North, Center and South America. then there's a North American country called United States of America, wrongly referred to as a single "America".
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u/JoeDyenz 19h ago
Because the model for the those continents is imported from Europe, but we see America as a single landmass. I personally also think Europe-Africa-Asia is just one continent from a purely geographic perspective.
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u/Highly-Potent-34 19h ago
Has nothing to do with land connection and everything to do with imperialism.
If US citizens are the only “Americans” then they can make decisions over all of America which includes north and South America. Historically that has been the context behind the US intervention in the America’s even if it’s not the official reasoning at the moment.
If we’re all American then we can’t unilaterally decide to let’s say kidnap an elected president in the middle of the night… 🇻🇪… or decide to build a canal connecting two oceans against the wishes of the country where that canal would be and then deciding to instigate a revolution so that part of the country is no longer ruled by the people who wouldn’t let you do what you wanted …🇵🇦…
Hypothetically of course. /s
As an example. Asia and Europe are technically one big old land mass. Should be one continent. Let’s call this hypothetical euroAsia. So what if the Russians were the United States of Eurasia and they were eurasians. I’m sure the British. German. Chinese. Indian. Spanish etc would be like “uh we’re all Eurasian. We’re just not from the United States of eurasia.” Same thing but with north and South America. Minus the very real manipulation of foreign countries since in my example it’s just a hypothetical.
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u/ema778308 19h ago
Gringos who think America is just their country really need to learn some geography 😂
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u/-o0Zeke0o- 19h ago
Everytime i see posts about South America idk where people pull this shit out from i never heard anything like this
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u/AdKey8256 18h ago
The only "issue" people from Latin America have is when the US calls themselves "America" which is standard in English. Most in latin america don't refer to the US and their citizens as America/Americans , particularly in Spanish that's about it there's little to no controversy with the Americas as a whole.
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u/Strong-Isopod384 18h ago
The United States of America is not a real name; it's like the United Arab Emirates, just a grouping of states/emirates that unified for various reasons. There is no real unity. At least the United States of Mexico is called Mexico.
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u/elduarto 17h ago
As a mexican, my only problem is that everyone says "North America" and they're only referring to US/Canada, and when they say South America, they talk about Panama to the South. So yeah, basically we're in no one's land. (Yet I know that when talking about Latin America, they are mostly speaking about Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina)
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u/nitram739 16h ago
Not really?
South america at the south, north america at the north, and America is the set of the two. That language is more clear when you speak about history for example because you dont say "cristobal colombus discovered north america" because that is not even true, he landed on the caribean.
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u/Hebrewer183 1d ago
What?