Map Men | Where is America? | A History Teacher Reacts
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- Where is America? What IS America? Who are Americans? Are we doing it wrong? Mr. Terry reacts to Map Men for the first time. What does he think?
Original Video: • Where is America?
Links:
Gaming channel: / mrterrygaming
Instagram: / mrterryhistory
Twitter: / mrterryhistory
Twitch: / mrterryhistory
Discord - / discord
TeeSpring - mr-terry-histo...
Patreon - / mrterry
Streamlabs - streamlabs.com...
PayPal - paypal.me/mrte...
For all business inquiries: contact@tablerockmanagement.com
Is it America?
but "merica" could get confused with the kingdom of mercia, at least in writing.
very complicated "issue"!
what really annoys me is when people call the EU "europe" or EU citizens "europeans" though. but maybe that's just me being swiss (and not in the EU)
@@jurgnobs1308 I believe it's actually called "murica"
Canadians and other English speakers don't usually care much, but if you tell a person from Latin America you are from "America" they are likely to be very offended partly due to the way their education works, and partly due to the fact they are likely a native Spanish or Portuguese speaker and don't understand that English doesn't have a great alternative name.
Also, the Chinese thing is complete bull. I think lots of other people really did make it to America but the specific theory of 1421 doesn't make a lick of sense and no Chinese scholars advocated it because the Chinese voyages of Zheng He are documented and all headed in the opposite direction (towards Indonesia the Indian ocean, Arabia, and the east coast of Africa).
🌎
petition to call americans vespuccians.
YESSSS, more map men please, they are toooo good!
He does miss most of the jokes. MapMen are sooooo clever at filling their vids with nuance and fun memes.
If you are going for historical spin, the longitude problem, how triangles shrinked France, the map that saved most lives and British county names are the most historical of them. Also, who owns Antarctica. I’d recommend the longitude first, but that’s up to patrons.
The one about Bir Tawil is good, the one about gaps in maps, enclaves and borders too
To answer your questions:
1. Everyone who is not based in the USA call them Cray-ons ( two syllables!).
2. American mustard is so-called because it is very different from both French and English mustards. French mustards are usually not yellow and contain seeds whereas English mustards are much stronger and pungent. American mustard is so mild that it is little more than a yellow ketchup.
Yup! In Canada, we also call them Cray-Ons (two syllables) and of course we also embrace the many different kinds of mustards (french, english and of course the yellow ketchup mild version.) Depending upon what I am garnishing with the yellow condiment, I will select the appropriate version.
Moutarde de Dijon, tends to disagree
1. I have almost always heard crayons as two syllables, often with more of a schwa instead of the o. I have lived mostly in the SE USA.
Americans: "English food is so bland. Where's the flavour?"
The English: "Meet my Colman's"
@@ikke12345 Yes Dijon mustards can be quite sharp
For the sake of Terry and anyone else, here are a couple of the British references here at 16:52:
"Woking" is a large town to the South West of London. Technically in the county of Surrey it's about 20 mins away by train to central London so it's very much Commuter town. H.G Wells's "War of the Worlds" is set in that general area.
"Bradley Walsh" a celebrity with a long career and many appearances on TV including the UK version of Law and Order!
Don't forget "Our Graham" referencing the legendary Cilla Black on Blind Date.
Easily the most esoteric reference.
FUN FACT...My old Boss: David Andrews lived in Woking.
Late, but Jay flirts with being a "train guy", so the United States of Sub-par Railroads joke (USSR) is so good.
I'm in California and never heard "crayon" pronounced as "cran." We've always said "cray-on."
Here in Missouri, I've heard "cray-un" (could also be interpreted as "cray'n", it's just the "o" being squeezed out) and rarely "crown", but it's "cray-on" for most. I also have friends and relatives further south and a lot of exposure to southern dialects where I'm used to expecting that kind of reductive linguistic drift, I've never heard "cran" before this video. Maybe it's a northeastern coast thing?
Here in New York it is also a "cray-on" ... never heard of a "cran"
Canadian here it's always been said cray-on here
same in Quebec, both in french and english
The word "crayon" comes from French, and they pronounce it "crey-ong", so the letter "a" is pronounced as an "e" as in "let".
I'm from Québec and in French, although we often say "Américain", we do sometimes use "États-Uniens" (United Staters) to speak of the citizens of the United States in certain context.
Yes, as an American my French teacher used to always tell us were "États-Unien" and not "Américain", but I was always confused since my friends from France were very angry whenever I called myself anything other than "Américain" XD
I do not think any other terms for us have gone over very well there lol
yup thats true
What's the "certain context" you are referring to?
That's because the French culture of Canuckistan have different slang than mainland Franks. I grew up calling my grandparents certain french names that old people in France would be very mad to be called... but in that isolated French culture, language and meanings change, much like American English vrs Queens English or Espania Spanish vrs Latin American Spanish
In Finland we have two very similar ways to call USA Citizens, that I'm aware of. "Amerikkalainen", American and "Yhdysvaltalainen", United Stater.
As an English person, I can honestly say I've never said "crayn", I've always pronounced crayon as "cray - on".
not only spanish, portuguese and i think italian as well.
I head the name of Mexico is "united states of Mexico" or "estados unidos mexicanos". but the name "mexico" came from the "mexicas" that was how the aztecs call themselfs, i believe.
Here in Brazil i learned that all this land is america and is subdivided in 3 parts: South, Central and North. But the map men also has a very good video that explains why is dificult to define exacly whats is a continent. Like what we use to divide them. I recomend that one.
I do not recommend it. I like the two continent divide. North and South America.
@@dawnpalacios8312 and the central? 🤔 And you don't recomend It because .. you don't like it?
And if i say that i recomend It because i like It?
I think the true os that It don't really manter. I'm gonna call the continent Vesputia lol
@@dawnpalacios8312 no central american would ever recognize itself as north american, it makes no sense. THe only division that make sense is america as the continent (because any other way the word "america" has no right to be used for stuff like "latin america" , "anglo america" and others). And the subdivisions of north, south and central american, to correspond with the rougly, the continental plates. Just like india or arabia are not contiennts, but at best subcontinents.
Continents are based on geological history not geographical history. There's two continents that make up the America's and it's all due to the breakup of Pangea which broke into a northern half and a southern half. North America was part of the north and was connected to Europe while South America was part of the south and was connected to Africa. After the two continents split away from their respective supercontinents and began drifting towards East Asia, They would join together after formation of the Isthmus of Panama. They are two distinct continents but they're connected by a land bridge (much like the Bering Strait was a land bridge during the Ice Age) or how the Sinai connects Africa and Asia.
@@luke_cohen1 There are a lot of different definitions of what a continent is and none are accepted by 100% of the... official continent definers, whoever they are. New Zealand is technically part of a continent of its own, if by certain geographical definitions. Would Europe and Asia be Eurasia? Some put Africa together forming Afroeurasia. Choose your preferred setting.
"They know that Asia doesn't go thousands more miles east" The not-obscure map based on Marco Polo's travels does show Asia as being that large, because Marco Polo's travels are written by the time it took to do things, not the distance travelled (and he was a slow traveller), causing the *calculation* of Asia's size to be way off from reality. Where he landed lines up roughly with the expected location of the mythical land of gold Zipangu, which is now referred to as El Dorado and is actually Japan. When explorers found the mainland and saw that it wasn't China, they thought *that* must be Zipangu (El Dorado) and that's how the famous gold hunt began
While they may not have known the actual size of Asia, they had a pretty accurate idea of the size of the Earth, Africa and the distance by the eastern route to Asia so thay should have been able to figure out that it was unlikely that the new lands where part of the asian continent.
In the third century BCE, Eratosthenes, a Greek librarian in Alexandria, Egypt, determined the earth's circumference to be 40,250 to 45,900 kilometers (25,000 to 28,500 miles) by comparing the Sun's relative position at two different locations on the earth's surface. And others had come to similar numbers well before that.
Umm excuse me but isn't El Dorado supposed to be in America?
@@gianb3952 Yes, Zipangu is a diffrent mythical story about a land of immense riches. El Dorado in South America explicitly is about a gilded man ritual. Eventually Eldorado came to mean an entire fabulous country of gold, with legendary cities named Manoa and Omagua.
@@kronop8884 ah yes the land of immense riches... so rich that timber was a valuable commodity.
The reason why the United States got its name was because the people of the time from its Inception were used to calling it The United colonies in North America and renamed it the United States of America, they changed it to that in a quick haste when they were doing negotiations with both France and Britain. When it comes to name changes there were two proposed names that could have been use instead but one after Gran Colombia gained Independence Columbia was not an option anymore and the second one called Fredonia was stalled to death and was also used as a point of mockery for the overly patriotic.
And the reason its called America now is because the other names to long for anyone to bother with lol.
@@Skyte100
I mean the USA is the only country in Americas to literally have the word America in its name, so I mean
@@steelbear2063 thats a dumb argument, are only south africans africans?, you are not america!
@@cseijifja i don't get why people are so upset by it though. We should be allowed to claim that name. We are the sole superpower of the world after all.
@@retrowave69 that's not how it works mate, if having a big military is all it takes then china is "asia" , france is "europe", and south africa is "africa", not even in theri wildest dreams swould they be able to claim the name. Not evne fucking rome called itself europe, and rome was comrpatively mightier, larger, more impactfull adn lasted far longer than the us has or will.
6:44 to Answer your question yes. From South Dakota here and most people I know do say Crayon like Cray on
Does anyone say crayons with 2 syllables?
Yes... The whole of the UK for starters...
Theres another video by map men that touches on the why the whole continent concept thing is arbitrary, taught differently in every region and leads to annoying stuff.
What you do if you don't know something in maps is you draw sea monsters there and write "Here be dragons".
Past people privilage
“Crayon” has two syllables. Remember, most English-speakers in the world are not from the United States. Indeed, many Americans also pronounce it “cray-on”. Depends from what part of your country you hail, I imagine.
You are right though that for Spanish-speakers, “Americano/ Americana” refers to anyone from the Bering Strait down to Tierra Del Fuego. I live in Mexico now, and they refer to someone from the USA as “Estadunidense”.
“Map Men” are brilliant. Their videos are very funny, and their accents and humour are quintessentially English.
And yes, we learned about Amerigo Vespucci in school… in Ireland!
There are people who pronounce crayon differently than how it's written? That's news to me. I've watched hundreds of American TV shows, from cartoons to soap operas, and I have never heard anyone say it as 'crans'. You sure that's not just you?
Map Men is a fascinating show. Both satirical and educational, they do a good job at teaching you stuff in a fun way. If I had History teachers like them back when I was in school, I might have had a much greater passion for history than I currently have.
American regional dialects are very rarely shown on American TV. Actors a taught to speak General American. Weirdly folks in the UK have Recieved Pronunciation but they proudly display their dialects on TV.
God I remember some members of a forum using the word "Usonian" for some reason and it puzzled me to hell until I realised that he was referring to the USA, and that *he* was from Peru.
The problem isn't people saying they are Americans, the problem is people saying they are from America, and then they get prissy when you ask "which part".
AMERICA is a CONTINENT made up of 35 countries and more than 1000 million inhabitants poor stupid ignorant people are pitiful
yeah, because USA think's it's the center of the earth.
The problem is when individuals claim America is a country, therefore 'American' is a citizenship so to them, that means they're the only Americans!
"Apalachia? No, that's a specific region!" he says to defend using a nonspecific name for a specific region...
Well I'm from Germany, we use to call citizens of the US of A US-Amerikaner meaning US-Americans. I think this term is quite handy.
I'm a Scot. I met an American guy in Glasgow once who apologised for using the term the United States to describe his homeland. As if he has to specify the United States of Wherever.. I has to tell him to call it whatever he is comfortable with and that anyone objecting was just being picky. United States, USA, America, The States... Whichever one you use we all know where you mean.
America is a continent, not a country. Therefore, 'American' is not a nationality or a citizenship, officially.
Furthermore,an American is from the Continent of America!
This guy doesn’t do irony does he?
Technically, the USA is not the only "United States" on the American continent(s). Just look at the original constitution-defining documents for Mexico.
Also, fun fact... "Waldseemuller" literally translates to "Forest lake miller"
I guess the map maker's family used to be millers for a town on a lake in Germany at some point.
As a Canadian, I have talked about this with my friends from the USA... It's a good laugh, because even they say "Yeah!!! It's weird!! What should we call ourselves?". I have offered "YouEssAyers" or "United Statesians" or "Miscreants"... They don't really like those three much. A few of them just say "Merkins" until I remind them that 'murkin' is a pubic wig. Sooooooo, yeah, nope. Still working on it!
We in Britain call your mustard 'American mustard' to distinguish the one that goes well with hot dogs from 'English mustard' that goes well with everything else and 'French mustard' that goes well with nothing.
Cray-ons in Australia and nearly every other country in the world besides the US.
In every country around the world it will be called American mustard. Mustard is actually different in other countries and is too thick to splurt out a squeezy bottle...it is usually spread with a knife.
I'm in a Spanish history group and plenty of people got very angry because we refer to the u.s as America.
I've experience a lot of this and it's truly hilarious. They get angry as if AMERICANS care whatsoever.
@@zeplyn-r6 Your reaction is also why people from the USA frequently have a reputation for extreme cultural insensitivity.
@@alicemilne1444 I don’t care. I simply don’t like hearing entitled Spanish speakers telling us how to use the English language, just as I don’t like how some Americans try to force change within the Spanish language.
@@zeplyn-r6 You are not the only people in this world who use the English language. You are perfectly welcome to call yourselves Americans inside the USA, but as soon as you move into international contexts you need to pipe down a bit.
@@alicemilne1444 no you can kick rocks and get over it in your third world country there's only one America and we are the only ones that can call ourselves Americans
In FInland USA is called just United States although the formal form includes the "of America". So Amerikan yhdysvallat or just Yhdysvallat. Talking about just America or someone being American, people will assume you are talking about the whole continent.
I'm Mexican and I don't really mind people from the US calling themselves AMERICANS, what I do mind though is AMERICANS and CANADIANS not acknowleding that we MEXICANS are also NORTH AMERICANS. It's easy to look at any modern map and accepting that fact. There are very clear cultural differences, granted, but GEOGRAPHICALLY we are not South Americans, we are not Central Americans, we are also NORTH AMERICANS.
we, in europe, knows u are north american. (and France has a tiny foot in north america as well)
yes , mexico is north america, unfortunately, for them "north america" means "anglo america".
AMERICA is a CONTINENT made up of 35 countries and more than 1 billion inhabitants ALL of us born in AMERICA from Canada to Argentina are AMERICANS
North America Central America Insular America (Caribbean Islands) and South America are GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS of CONTINENT AMERICA
NORTH AMERICA, as its name indicates, is a GEOGRAPHICAL REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT that is located in the NORTH of the AMERICA CONTINENT and is made up of 3 countries, Canada, the USA, and Mexico, which is not in north Asia.
CENTRAL AMERICA as its name indicates is a GEOGRAPHICAL REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT that is located in the CENTER of the AMERICA CONTINENT is not in the center of Africa
INSULAR AMERICA, as its name indicates, is a GEOGRAPHICAL REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT ISLAND lands set of ISLANDS of the AMERICA CONTINENT (Caribbean Islands)
SOUTH AMERICA as its name indicates is a GEOGRAPHICAL REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT that is located in the SOUTH of the AMERICA CONTINENT is not in the south of Europe
LATIN AMERICA, as its name indicates, is a REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT where languages derived from the European language, Latin, are spoken, as well as the European languages SPANISH and PORTUGUESE.
HISPANIC AMERICA, as its name indicates, is a REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT where the European language is spoken, SPANISH, the most widely spoken language in AMERICA and by AMERICANS of the 35 countries of AMERICA in 18, SPANISH is spoken with more than 500 million speakers. throughout AMERICA being by far SPANISH the most spoken language in AMERICA and by AMERICANS
ANGLO-SAXON AMERICA, as its name indicates, is a REGION of the AMERICA CONTINENT where the European Anglo-Saxon language, ENGLISH, is spoken.
Educate yourself and stop consuming counterfeit adulterated garbage made in the USA that DOES NOT EXIST
@@america1832That's just like your opinion. Continents are only defined by convention. With that said, the most common continent model in the West counts North America and South America as continents, not regions.
Technically, Mexico is in Central America.
I just woke up, and I see a Mr. Terry video was posted 14 mins ago. Reminded me of rolling out of bed and shipping off to school lol
These guys are so good! You should absolutely react to more from them.
Small correction... Bartolomeu DIas was the first european to sail around the south of Africa (1488) and Vasco da Gama was teh first one to reach India by sea in 1498.
I love Jay's videos but I don't know if two people from the United Kingdom of England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland really have the right to complain about the length of our name.
Its the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but your point still stands.
The Kingdom of Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England in the 1500s, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland were combined into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 having been in a personal union before that.
@@Dakkapow Wales was never a single kingdom. It had 8 or 9 different kingdoms with a variety of different rulers before it was conquered by Edward I of England in 1282. All that happened in the 1500s was that Wales was finally legally incorporated into England. It has no independent status as a kingdom before then.
@@alicemilne1444 Actually Wales has been ruled by a single king a few times in its history. It's the problem with later labels being pushed backwards onto history. We insist that the kingdom of Gwynedd having overlordship over all of Wales doesn't count as a kingdom of Wales for arbitrary reasons. There have been several rulers known as the king of Wales and, when Owain Gwynedd decided to call himself Prince of Wales rather than King he was actually saying that he was more important than King Edward I of England. Back in those days Prince was still seen in its classical form as a derivation of Princeps, a title held by the Roman Emperors, which was better than being a mere king.
@@bjiornbjiorn According to John Davies, who is a Welsh historian, the whole of Wales was only ever briefly united as one single kingdom under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn from 1055 to 1063. Saying that there was an overlord called a prince is not the same, especially as - except for Gruffydd - those princes of Wales never ruled over the entire territory that is now Wales.
There were overlords in England and Scotland before they became unified as well.
That’s because you are “American”.
Map Men and Johnny Harris are two of my absolute favourite geography channels on YT. So good.
As a Brazilian, my two cents on the topic is: most people I know don't have a problem to call someone from the USA "American", we do have other word (Estadosunidense), but "americano" is far more common. What we do have a problem is to call the country "America" instead of "United States". One thing that I realize not long ago is that in the USA people are taught there's 2 continents: North and South America, so the whole landmass would be called "The Americas" and therefore no confusion, however in Latin America we are taught that there's only one continent: "America", being North, Central, South and Caribbean subdivisions (like in Europe when you have Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, etc or in Asia with Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc), so for us calling one country with the name of the entire continent is just not cool.
I don't think it's something that Americans do to annoy anyone btw, I understand how it came to be as it is, but I think most of the issue comes from this different understanding on how many continents there are between the Pacific and the Atlantic and I don't think it has an easy solution.
Also.. despite from how you calling yourselves, not having a word for someone from the entire continent ("America" or "The Americas") is just crazy.
You guys are obviously wrong it's that simple
Well, we at least DO have a word for the native peoples of the entire continent: Indians! Oh, but I suppose now you're going to find some obscure technical reason to claim that doesn't actually make sense, either.
(Warning: the previous paragraph may contain elements of sarcasm.)
(Seriously though, you guys really ARE just full-on wrong about North & South America all being one continent)
@@briangonigal3974 why?, continents are made out by cultural, political and historical reasons, the only such line that exists is between the USA and mexico, and evne then , this line is weakers than any national border in europe, if spaina nd england aint two separate continents, why should america be two?, when the usa is so influenced by latin culture? it's foundational, half yoru country is latin since inception,a nd even cultural marks, like cowboys, are hispanic in nature ,there are cowboys from patagonia to alaska.
Geography barely matters for anything in the matter of continents, as proof , europe is a continent, why do we sudenyl make up rules for america?, the answer is easy, the USa needs the name for tis own nation building purposes, before the 20th century, the "american" identity was almost non existant, so that another civil war dosent happen, a new name was needed. Coopting "american" from those filthy "unwhite" latin americans was the easy way out.
As a USA'en. We were taught a number of things: Western Hemisphere, then "The Americas": North, Central, South America. North and South American Continents. I believe Central America is then grouped into the North American Continent, although some maps only include Mexico. Most of the "I'm from America" talk is just informal slang. We are both from The Americans, if you freely choose to call yourself that.
@@briangonigal3974
Well, you got rekt by the response of "Seii".
It’s been a little bit since I’ve click one of Mr Terry’s videos, but I saw Map Men in the notification and had to
You hate to tell you this but I and everyone I know have said “cray-ons” my entire life. I’ve never heard until now anyone pronounce it the way way you did in this video. 😁
Just a fun fact..... yellow mustard in other countries is called American Mustard and most people will only use it on hamburgers and the occasional hot dog. And most don't even consider it an acceptable mustard. Kind of like american cheese is only used on hamburgers and absolutely nothing else
YES! MORE MAP MEN PLEASE! They have GREAT videos.
7:10 "no one heard about Amerigo Vespucci" - that is so "american" thing to hear
I am not a huge fan of geography, but still I remember Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus, Fernando Magellan, Francis Drake and may be other people who were traveling around that times. Of course I don't know their exact trips, but I definitely knew about Amerigo Vespucci from school.
MORE Jay Foreman immediately. Unfinished London is certainly interesting history
In china 5 continents : asia america africa europe oceania(australia) or 6 with artartida also coutries as : veitman indonesia turkey south korea spain italy france rumania greece portugal and others coutries
These guys are hysterical!
13:45 In German, for example, it is usually specified as "U.S.-American".
Yes, I am from Germany too, and Germany is in central Europe, so I am proud to call myself "European".
I have got friends in Costa Rica, that is in Central America: Can they not call themselves "Americans"?
I knew some of this, but Vespuchi's PR campaign is news to me. I had been taught it as him having written about the new world as a minor footnote as to why we're not living in the United State of Columbia and had only looked at Vespuchi's voyages and not much else in my own reading about him.
But given how badly that part of history was taught to me in school, it's not too surprising. I'd love to know how it's taught in US public school these days (though I'd imagine it varies by state). I grew up while Washington Irving's history fanfics were being taught in school as if they were true. I'm hopeful that has since ended.
Bytheway who is Giovanni da Verrazzano ?
@@aldocuneo1140 First known European to explore the eastern coast of what would later become the US. If you're suggesting that would be a better Italian figure for Washington Irving to have latched onto, you're not alone.
in british columbia we say "cray-ons" - not sure about the rest of the country though. But we also say "pencil crayons" (still fully enunciated) instead of "coloured pencils" which is pure lunacy
french word for pencil , 2 syllabs. pencil crayon = pencil pencil :)
Yes, Most of the people I know say crayon, both syllables. From where the English language originated.😊
"Empanadas are sooo gooood, I could go for some empanadas, ", that was so original, 🤣😇, I mean who would have thought that a random comment would make this vlog even richer in content, love your commentary!!!!
"Europeans" come from some country in Europe
"Asians" come from some country in Asia
"Africans" come from some country in Africa
"Americans" come form some country in America
-Americans: 'Some country in America? You mean state, right?'
Couldn't help but notice you missed Australia, which includes PNG, New Zealand, and various Pacific Island nations alongside Australia.
@Parabellum Or you could continue with the theme you had going on with the names.
"Europeans" come from some country in the CONTINENT of Europe.
"Asians" come from some country in the CONTINENT of Asia.
"Africans" come from some country in the CONTINENT of Africa.
The thing that you seem to fail to understand is that the Americas are actually two separate continents.
"North Americans" come from some country in the CONTINENT of North America.
"South Americans" come from some country in the CONTINENT of South America.
Finally, lets discuss the importance of context when it comes to language.
When I tell someone that I am an "American" then just by the context of the conversation of telling that person where I am from; I can expect them to understand that I am discussing a country not a continent, and as it turns out, the USA is the only country in existence with America in its name.
Therefore, just by the very nature of language and words having meaning, only people from the USA can call themselves "Americans" without the prefix of North or South.
@@bluehammer1245 linguistically speaking, and because words have meaning, denotes a subsection of place. For example, 'the north Pacific' is the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, with the Pacific Ocean being bigger than 'the north Pacific'. Likewise, 'South East Asia' is a section of Asia. Or saying 'East London' is part of London.
Now, isn't it weird if I say I'm "North American" means I come from a subsection of America, and if I say I'm "South American" means I come from a subsection of America, but if I say "I'm American" means I come from a subsection of NORTH America which is already a subsection of America?
@@bluehammer1245 Also the term "European" can sometimes refer specifically to citizens of the multinational organization that makes up *much* of the continent rather than people from the continent of Europe in general.
I'm from the US but now live in the UK. I've always said "cray-on". I would also vote to call it "Destiny Manifested"
Their longitude video is really good and full of interesting history.
Speaking of which, I loved watching these videos and just recently you started coming back in my feed. Great to see yea again =D
I've always been fond of either Southern Eriksonia or Northern Vespuccia. Both have a nice ring, I think.
I admit I have to agree with the people in South America who don't want the country to be called "America". They also live in America (the 2 continents North and South America). The people who don't care, live in both the USA and America. Our country has a similar situation: I live in Holland, or the Netherlands which is the proper name for it. But I don't care calling it Holland, because I live in one of the 2 provinces that together form Holland. The people who do care, live in the other 10 provinces; they live in the Netherlands but not in Holland. Similarly, the people who live in the Americas but not in the United States care. If you want a short term, use the abbreviation USA.
You should review some videos from the "The Great War" channel. Thorough, exhaustive, entertaining.
In regards to Columbus, he had a decent idea of the circumference of the Earth. It is widely thought Columbus was using the Martellus map. He did take the size as around 18,500 miles but that was likely due to some issues between Roman and Arabic miles. However the main issue was that people at the time thought Asia was much bigger than it was. This was based on the works of Marco Polo, which were fairly poor at describing distance. There was also the longitudinal problem as well. But he was working off of what was considered the best map of the time that showed a much larger Asia. It has also been conjectured that he intentionally underestimated the circumference because the shorter distance would more easily get funding.
I am Swedish and I just call it the US. America always been the continent for me.
The continent is North America though..
@@0816M3RC yes and no. It depends on how you count continents. Just like like Europe and Asia sometimes is the continent of Eurasia. It is between 7 and 4 continents depending on how it is counted. I perfer to see it as one continent with three areas of North, Central and South. But in my country you normaly learn in school to split America into two continents. But in Spain and France and a few other places it is common to go with America as one continent.
Jag kallar det för skithuset :)
@@freewill8218 väldigt många länder att dra över samman kant.
America is a continent & an American is from the Continent of America.
America is from Alaska to Patagonia
15:08 This is a non-argument because The US did try to rename herself as Columbia multiple times, but it never gained traction.
Still relevant, 'Columbia' never gaining traction is a cultural thing, culturally it was rejected even if the government petitioned to change it...
@@Oscar-vv6dn because it wasn't really enforced, and by the time they tried, colombia was a thign, and was a country bigger than the US at the time.
There are many other ways to refer to people from the US, but not all are suitable for polite company. Seppo is one word and fills the need splendidly. And the county could well be called Seppoland.
I know, I am from the Netherlands, my people are not Netherlanders, but Dutch. My language is not Netherlandish, but Dutch. All because the English were too lazy to find a new word for us after Germany became a thing. So, we are stuck with having the medeaval name for all the germanic speaking people on the continent.
In Spanish, Dutch is actually called Holandés after Holland.
Your fault for Screwing things up with the Flemings and French speakers in the Spanish Netherlands, aka Belgium. The Congress of Vienna gave the House of Orange that territory but you were not fair to them. Could have had Luxembourg, too, and some more of Germany.
@@JRobbySh Ah well, shit happens.
I expect Map Men to become a regular on this channel, enjoy.
I don't object to calling yourself "American". Personally, as an European whoes country is not in the 'European Union' I find it strange when USA citizens refer to Mexican citizens as NOT being American. I don't mind USA citizens calling themselves American, just as French person might call themselves a European, it is the insistence that other countries in the same America are not allowed to use the same term that comes across as arrogance (even if not intended that way).
Also I grew up in South Wales but not only did my neighbours call themselves Welsh, they also called people from North Wales as Welsh. The existence of a North and South does not precludes a whole, whether explicit or implied.
Region names, often having been coined before an understanding of tectonics, may or may not coincide with continents. Plus if you start getting pedantic with continents, rather than human allocated map names, then San Francisco is arguably on a different continent to most of the rest of the USA.
P.S. As I speak native English I say "cray"-"on", though my Welsh neighbours would use the Wenglish "cray"-"un". "Wenglish" is English as spoken by the Welsh with phrases such as "See you tomorrow next week", "now in a minute" and "better than tidy[good], it's half-tidy" I.e. "half-tidy"="very good".
Well it's good it's not up to you then stay in your European lane
Mexican citizens do not call themselves “ Americans”. To them we are Americanos. The Mexican-Americans refer to us as Anglos. But we are not English.
Indeed. But of course Columbus is in disgrace among our Power Elites.
@@JRobbySh Spaniards referred to native Mexicans, as well as Mexicans from European descent as "americanos" (lower case "a", in Spanish you don't capitalize demonyms) for hundreds of years before the USA was a thing. Maybe it vanished in Mexico due to US-American influence, but in most of Latin America people do consider themselves "americanos". For example, when Ernesto "Che" Guevara left Argentina in the trip that would end with him joining the Cuban commies in Mexico, when he boarded the train to leave his town, his last words to his family were "here goes an soldier from America" (aquí va un soldado de América).
America is a continent & an American is from the Continent of America.
Concise & factual!
I don't know anyone that doesn't say two syllables of crayon.
Hard to make fun of Marines if you call them "crans", they don't know that word.
I think this is a good place to point out the concept of a colloquialism. America. Is just that.
My degree is in Linguistics, and I can say for sure that there are at least 4 known pronunciations in the United States alone for Crayon. Considering that 2 of those pronunciations have roots in Scots-Irish, I'd say its safe to assume that you also have multiple pronunciations in the UK.
AMERICA is a CONTINENT made up of 35 countries and more than 1000 million inhabitants poor stupid ignorant people are pitiful
America is a continent, not a country. Therefore, 'American' is not a nationality or a citizenship, officially.
Furthermore, an American is from the Continent of America!
"The whole world refers to us as Americans"
"Spanish speaking countries refer to us as something different"
You say it doesnt come from a place of ignorance but going from your words alone and how you either forget what youve said already or choose to not include Spanish speaking countries as part of the world it sounds more like arrogance than ignorance
I think there's more important things to worry about, but the map men videos are always good for a laugh a bit like the United States, there's an idea how about we just call it the United States, similar to the United Kingdom, and the European Union, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United Arab Emirates, just thinking out LOUD, you could always just call yourselves USians, or statians, or statiens, or stations, or Unisiens, or unitiates, you get the idea...........
All of the example names that you gave are absolutely ridiculous.
@@kennetic9196 that's rather the point
Hello, Terry! Actually, in standard German, we call you "Americans." But some years ago, for whatever reason, the German Wikipedia community started to use sentences like "George Bush war ein US-amerikanischer Präsident." Now, it even seems to be the standard for articles in the German language Wikipedia edition to use "US-American" to make clear that this person comes from the USA, not from Canada or Brazil. Then, the "Tagesschau," a nation-wide news broadcast by one of the publicly-financed channels ("ARD") which still is the leading news broadcast in Germany each day on 8 p.m. with a major market share, started to use this hyphenated "US-amerikanisch" variant as well. It therefore becomes more and more popular, also for newspapers and press agencies. Also, In the English-speaking world, you see North America and South America as two continents. Europeans don't do this, for us, it's one continent (with regions like Central America, Latin America.) That's why the Olympic flag has five and not six rings, red for "America" if I remember it correctly. So, the answer to the question, how many continents are there on earth, differs from the culture you come from. Best regards from Hamburg, Germany!
I mean, I too, as a German, understand that there is no word like Unitedstatesian but I still dislike US Americans just calling their country America (disregarding 2/3 of the population of the Americas) bc it feels very self important as in "yeah, all that is some kind of America but we actually matter". That's what it sounds like to me.
Not saying it's technically wrong, just saying I dislike and avoid it ^^
Also, I as a geoscientist refer to the continents together as America bc, imo, they are one continuous continent, same as Eurasafrica. But continents are a stupid concept anyways.
I've usually heard Afro-Eurasia, not Eurasafrica.
@@qwertyTRiG that does sound better in English 🤔
Blame the British for referring to the colonials as American then.
@@kennetic9196 That's not true, the most common name to refer to the peoples from the 13 colonies was "colonists". "Americans" started to slowly get widely used only after the independence. You can check the use of the word in the "Declaration of Rights and Grievances" from 1765 or Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" from 1776.
The problem is that the rather unweildy name of their nationstate renders pretty much every other semi-viable alternative rather... awful... to the majority of English speakers. Very awkward, when it isn't outright unfortunate.
America is the entire region, the OAS would agree with the original vlog from MapMen, as they said, Columbus went on to, "discover" America in 1492. For a short time now, I have been reminding people in Social Media who get offended when someone outside of the United States say that they are an American, that these individuals are right, the English speaking world has decided to nickname The United States of it's region, after the name of the region, "America".
One can always expect folks in The United States to be offended, and go on the defense, when people tell them that America is not the name of The United States, but it's true, all one would have to do is to go back and check the website of an organization that is more than 100 years old, The OAS (Organization of American States), Which Covers Columbus' so called, West Indies and Caribbean also. As a bit of research you will see who started the OAS and the various reasons why it was formed, the full History, not the version that The United States would have you believe, because even after 100+ years, would still be an embarrassment to The U.S, because their approach and policies towards the other American States, "Countries", are still very self conceited and biased !
Btw im from what you may call Central America and i do find the whole American thing annoying but it’s clearly a cultural conflict both regions will have to learn to live with for a long while.
In Spanish, "americano" refers to anything in the Americas, whereas "estadounidense" is someone or something from the US, specifically (as you referred to).
AMERICA is a CONTINENT made up of 35 countries and more than 1000 million inhabitants poor stupid ignorant people are pitiful
I'm Colombian and obviously we use the word America as a continent. Not a country. It happens to be that Spanish and Italians were the "first" Europeans to discover the new world and name it. The name America has stuck since then and when we fought for our independence from the Spaniards, America became a patriotic identity, quite like the great homeland. That's why when the XXI came with the Internet, we found out that Americans actually think their country is the only America, the concept so ludicrous to us that the discussion about this began
19:57 MapMen specifically said "The English Speaking World" calls USonians (Frank Lloyd Wright's term) "Americans". The Spanish Speaking Americans (not sure about Brazilians) call USonians "norteamericanos" (North Americans).
AMERICA is a CONTINENT made up of 35 countries and more than 1000 million inhabitants poor stupid ignorant people are pitiful
Eh, countries can call themselves whatever they want. We just rename things randomly all the time. Türkiye just changed its name from Turkey, when Britain and France redrew the borders in the Middle-East they got rid of old names and created new countries like Israel. It’s no longer Rome, it’s Italy. It’s no longer Mycenae it’s Greece. Modern Macedonia isn’t even where historical Macedonia is. Or you have countries like Japan that have one name on maps, Japan, but their country has a different official name, Nippon-Koku. The point is, none of the naming stuff matters. Just call things whatever you want to call them.
*whatever they want you to call them. Because sometimes it may get offensive and it's preferable to listen to the actual country. You don't call Native Americans "Indians", because they might not like it, and they come from a bunch of different tribes that a generalized under that umbrella term. It's like pronouns.
For example, Belarus and Ukraine both hate how Russia addresses them. Belarus gets called Belorussia, which is denying their national identity and claiming them to be just other kind of Russians. And instead of IN Ukraine Russians say ON Ukraine, because it's addressed like a territory(as if we it's an island), not like a country. Which used to be true, but changed decades ago.
@@pomamoba So you expect all countries who call it Germany, Allegmagne, or other derivatives to all just change their ways and do it the German way? Languages are going to simplify things to their own ways for it to be easier.
@@pomamoba exactly none of it matters. It’s like some jerk yelling an insult at you on the street, don’t be so sensitive.
@@pomamoba No. I'm tired of this dumb argument. Taking offense is a choice and is used to control people over petty bullshut like this. Take your pettiness and leave the rest of us alone.
@@enderoctanus Okay, how about if I as a UK citizen just decide to call your country "the Colonies" and you "a colonial" because that's what you are to me? I can just see you bristling and spluttering "but, but Independence, we won the war, etc., etc." If you claim the right to call yourself what you want, you have to accord that right to other people as well. It's called respect.
Cartographers of the time initially had what is called "the Assumption of Sea". i.e. if nobody has been there yet, they showed it as sea on the map.
I honestly agree with the south Americans because if there's a country and 2 continents called America you're gonna run into a lot of confusion I've noticed like talking about south America as in the states like Texas New Mexico Florida etc. or south America with Columbia Brazil Argentina etc. is bound to cause confusion refering to it that way so I honestly prefer to call the country the US and the continents North and South America respectively and if you wanna say you come from the United States just say "I'm from the US" instead of saying "I'm American" saying a sentence is too long is not valid reasoning to completely dismiss a genuine complaint South American people have brought up and want to discuss a solution for and I honestly find it pretty ridiculous that that's your argument for not being willing to change a bit of language just so other people don't get frustrated every time you say the wrong thing
They can get over it this is America the only America
@@elvangulley3210 so South America just doesn't exist? You do understand how silly you sound saying something like that, don't you? Do you also believe that the United States are the only states?
@@itsaUSBline south America is just that but they aren't Americans and never will be we will continue to call ourselves Americans in all parts of earth and you and all the other people that don't like it can continue to kick rocks
@@itsaUSBline they're from the US don't try to argue with them it's easier to make a compelling argument against a brick wall than that person
@@elvangulley3210 so South America is not america ? Do you even know that "America" word existed far before the British ever set foot in the NW?
If you think about it, there isn't actually a contradiction in calling them the West Indies (aside from wildly misunderstanding where they landed). The East Indies themselves were also named for the direction that Europeans traveled to get there, where they would have landed on the western shores. Calling the eastern portions the West Indies when travelling west to reach them is at least consistent.
Just because you do something wrong for a long time, doesn't make it right. America is not, never has been a country. I fail to understand how an educator would argue otherwise, or at least be so apathetic as to just say, 'that's just how it is... it's not important to me, so it's just not important".
"America is not, never has been a country."
Incorrect.
"The United States of America" shows up in documents from the 1700s and is the full name of this country. "United States" and "America" are just ways to refer to the country without typing out the whole name. Also we are the only country with "America" in the name therefore we use American as our denonym.
I am not sure why this is so hard for non-Americans to understand.
@@0816M3RC at best its a bad habit, calling the USA "america". If the Usa is america ,why then is north america called america at all?, or latin america?, why are all areas asociated with the american continent, "american"?
Even the continetal model the USa uses is wrong and dumb, why is america a smaller coutnry inside the north american continent? It only makes sense if you understand america as a continent, then all clicks, the USA is the USA because they are the only united states in "america", like the european union, but more together.
Then you ahve the more logical north, south, and central subcontinents,follwoing the tectonic plates present in the continent.
Continents are divided on historical / cultural lines, thas why asia africa and eruope are continents, no other reason, there is no cultural or historical reason to cut trough colombia adn panama and pretend they are two difernet things.
@@cseijifja North America and South America together form the Americas, not America. It's 2 continents, therefore it's plural.
@@0816M3RC Argentina's first (and still co-official) name is "Provincias Unidas de Sud América". Also, the Grand Republic of Central America existed until the end of the 19th century.
We understand, we just disagree.
@@kennetic9196 Continents are just arbitrary definitions. If we had to use a rigid definition there would be like 4 of them. In several countries, America is considered just one continent, just like Europe and Asia can be considered a single continent, Eurasia. Sometimes America is divided into three subcontinents, with Central America being a thing (and a former country called Grand Republic of Central America existed until the end of the 19th century). Map Men have a great video about it.
You could just say "I'm from the US", that's pretty much just as fast as saying "I'm an American"
That works in simple cases, but quickly gets awkward if you need to succinctly describe people or things that are from the USA in more complex situations.
Yankland gets my vote.
The popular German rock group Rammstein says we are all living in America. They even wrote a song about it, Amerika.
"Worse Britain" is trash but "Better Britain" kind of has a nice ring to it.
I'd suggest "Greater Britain" ;-)
As a Brit, I call people from the USA USians to distinguish them from other Americans. As a country like the Spanish, I call it the United States.
When it comes to pre-Columbian discovery of America, I personally like the story of St. Brendan the Navigator. While it's never been confirmed, the lands he described in his voyage to find Eden in the (I think) 4th century A.D. resemble Iceland and the coast of North America. It's also been tested and confirmed that the Cross-Atlantic trek would've been possible with the level of sea-faring technology at the time. I'd definitely recommend anyone to check out the story.
It's well-established now that the Vikings had colonies in Nova Scotia and possibly a little further south on the US mainland. The Vikings themselves wrote about the "Westermen" (thought to mean the Irish) who, they said, had got there first, wherever the Vikings went.
@@davidhyams2769 I completely forgot about my comment and need to point out that I was a couple of centuries off. Saint Brendan lived from c. AD 484 - c. 577. Still impressive if the legend is true. It should most definitely be said that there's a lot of mystery to pre-Columbian America. Such as theories that the ancient Chinese and/or Polynesians could very possibly have landed on the west coast. And if memory serves right, I believe I've also some legends about ancient Africans possibly even sailing to South America. People knew about these continents long before Amerigo Vespucci, and I dare to say long before Leif Erickson. Going off of that, as well as how advanced many ancient peoples were compared to what was previously thought, the likelihood of stories like Saint Brendan's being in the realm of truth rises from "possible" to "damn near certain".
Well, look at it this way.
Many US textbooks say Columbus discovered America.
Those textbooks don´t mean that Columbus reached US territory. (which he didn´t)
What happens is that those textbooks are using the same text that existed in the past, when even in the US, the word America was used BOTH for USA and for NEW WORLD.
If you go to Wikipedia German Language and type AMERICA, it will show you the NEW WORLD/Continent of America.
All European languages, except English, use the word America for EITHER the continent America (if their continental model has a single continent) OR for the whole New World.
The “controversy” around Americans calling themselves Americans is so stupid. There are plenty of words with contextually different meanings.
No one should be forcing their will on how other people use their own language, simple as that
But it is factually fals and can be mistaken in the context about wich place some one is from or where some one is going. Just call your self US American or from the US. Everything else is ignorant.
@@karinland8533 In English we say “the Americas” to describe the continents. I call myself an American, English speakers across the world call us Americans, and many other languages specifically refer to US citizens as their form of “American”. I’ve spent years studying Spanish to accommodate my fellow, albeit new, Americans, not to accommodate whiny Spanish speakers living south of the border. You will never be able to exert your will over Americans, get over it.
There is a name for people from the US "Yank", as an aside US doesn't stand for United States, the biggest use is unserviceable!
@@zeplyn-r6 every romance langauge has a word for the US that is not american, ususally some variation of "united stater". You folk dont even have denonym for half your states, (massachusets are called bay staters, for fucks sake) but "untied stater" or something is too hard?, there is a reason why almost all maps use "united states" for the name of the country, and not america, it's not yorus, never was.
Love the map men, but I can’t believe they mention John Cabot who got to Nova Scotia in 1498, whose ship the Matthew was owned by a man named Richard Amerike.
There was a Bristol born, Welsh merchant called Richard Amerike, who was owner of Cabot's ship the Matthew
Judging by the comments it looks like the only one who says "cran" is Terry
Personally I never call the country "America", i most often use "the US" or "the United States" but I I have no problems with calling the people Americans. Might be a Swedish or European thing tho since I've never seen or heard anyone here use the Swedish equivalent of "America" it's only ever "förenta staterna" which means the United States or simply USA
Similar in German. We also usually refer to the people as 'US-Amerikaner' in proper language.
I called them lying Yanks!
I understand what you mean Mr Terry History about language issue, I personally use the term "US or USA" to be more "political correct" and as you said we, the Hispanics speakers use 2 different words to solve our language issue to separate the nation (USA) and the continent (America), same as many "Mericans" as you said, use the term "European" to refer to any person from the old continent. Now, about the rest of the world using the term "Americans" to refer to a "US citizens", think in my humble opinion it's due to the fact that the English is the actual "lingua franca" and the "USA" is the top dog in the world.
This is *not* a language issue. I have my conclusion as to why this happens!
Do you consider yourself a person of logic, intelligence, common sense, critical & rational thinking?
'America', in the official name of the United States of America USA 🇺🇲, has represented a continent for the past 247yrs, even 269yrs before the USA 🇺🇲 existed.
The Continent of America has not changed name in 516yrs.
The United States of America USA 🇺🇲 is not *named* or hasn't changed its name to the United States of North America & South America (USNASA), the United States of the Américas, or
América of the United States!
If America is a country because the *OFFICIAL* name of the
United States🇺🇲 of 👉America👈🌎 has the word *America* at the end & "American" is a nationality because of the word 'America', then that same logic or train of thought has to apply to the
Republic of South *Africa* 🇿🇦 or the Central *African* Republic 🇨🇫.
We can easily, lazily, ignorantly, etc., do the same to the RSA🇿🇦 or the CAR🇨🇫 denoting a location or a demonym!
Congratulations, Africa is now a country & African is a citizenship just how America is a country & American is a nationality/citizenship!
Same exact logic!!!
So again, after this factual information, how can "American" be a nationality/citizenship if America is not a nation to begin with?
16th century Europeans acknowledged the New World as America & its inhabitants as Americans!
The terms "America" & "American" existed before the USA 🇺🇲 did & are not terms exclusively or solely for the USA🇺🇲
If you do your research/homework, you will find history behind the naming of the USA 🇺🇲 & its official abbreviations & why!
If *America* is a country, that would put States like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., in south *America.*
That would also mean New Mexicans are south *Americans!!!*
There was a TV show here in the USA 🇺🇲 named "Star Trek: The Next Generation". There's an android who's name is Data that operates on logic. Anyway, on the TV show, the Interplanetary Federal Republic is *named* The United Federation of Planets (UFP) & it's referred to as the *Federation* & *not* The Planets!
My South American friends get pretty mad when I call the USA America... So I tend to call it Seppo-Land since it rolls off the tongue a bit better than USA. And to be fair, it does feel pretty arrogant. It's like Deutschland calling itself Europe. Or China calling itself Asia. It's also lazy in the USA's case.
To be clear, I'm not saying it shouldn't be called The United States of America. Just that it shouldn't be called America. The whole name is important. If "there is no seperate word" for it in English then make one. Languages are made up, we can just add more words if we need to, we do it all the time.
What should United Mexican States call themselves? What about United States of Brazil?
@@dawnpalacios8312 What are you on about mate? I'm saying that the USA has an entire name, and that shortening it to America *sounds* pretty exclusionary, whether it's meant to or not. And the only reason there is no separate word for it's citizens, aside from the name of the whole continent, is that nobody there gives enough of a crap to make one.
@@lawaern3474 There is North and South America. Two continents not one.
For the 245 years, it has been United States of America and the citizens are called American. The official demonym of the citizens of United States of America recognize by the United Nations is American.
@@dawnpalacios8312 I'm not saying it isn't. I'm saying it *sounds* pretty arrogant. And saying there is no other term than "american" is silly. There *are* others, you just don't want to use them, because you like the one that makes people mad. Hopefully for different reasons.
You *could* use a different term, and if that caught on, the official term would change. You just don't want to.
@@lawaern3474 I find it arrogant to tell another country they have to rename themselves after several centuries. The official country name is United States of America and the official demonym is American. Just as the official demonym United Mexican States is Mexican. Just as North and South Korea official demonyn is Korean.
I cannot find any reason to change the official demonym of the citizens of United States of America.
Freedonia is such a funny choice for america lol, Duck Soup is a great movie.
If you speak English, you say crayon as it's spelt.
This is the same craziness that sees solder pronounced "sodder" & aluminium pronounced "aloominum".
You don't pronounce titanium "titanum", or uranium "uranum".
It's sort of thing perpetuates the myth of the "dumb American" & makes you seem like toddlers that can't pronounce "spagetti" or "animal" correctly.
Language variation is interesting and fun to learn about. Victuals is pronounced "vittals".
That's not how dialects work.
Aluminum and Aluminium is actually the result of some shenanigans back when it was first discovered (or whatever the correct term is). The guy going around telling everyone about this cool new thing he'd figured out Kept Changing His Mind About The Name. And the scientific comunities in different parts of the world went with what he was using at the time when he came through their area, basically.
There were at least three different names for the thing, and the USA settled on one and the UK settled on another and I forget how the rest of the mess went.
'North' and 'South' America never considered a single continent in the English language? That's just wrong. Try the model the Olympics use, arguably the most well known model of the continents. 5 rings for 5 continents - Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. America being a single continent has been a concept in the English language for well over a century.
What does the Olympics have to do with the English language?
TL;DR The word has different meanings and history in different languages and it hurts us Latin Americans that no one cares about us.
Well, here are my two cents as an Argentine (so basically an American jk)
I understand the lack of a demonym for the people of that country. We got Estadounidense, and in English you could have called yourselves "Staters" or "Statian" or whatever. The only reason those words sound weird is because I just made them up now. If people called themselves that since 1776 you would be totally on board with them and they wouldn't sound weird at all.
Anyway, I understand the need for the word "American", I use it myself when speaking English all the time. What I will never bring myself to say is America as a country. You Americans through the centuries have had to found another name for the continent of America. North America and South America are subdivisions of the continent of America, that's why they're both called America.
It feels too weird to say America for a country especially when you have other ways of calling your country in shorthand Form, like US or USA.
Americans and America (country) get called that in the US and internationally because they're important, they're powerful, and the world picks up on their culture everywhere. That's why the demonym for the US is many many other languages is "American" (even in European Spanish nowadays). That, as a Spanish speaking Latin American hurts. Because the word we use to call ourselves as a group of peoples now excludes us in the way most people internationally use it. It hurts and it feels insulting because when you don't know the culture and history behind it, it just sounds like "nono, WE are Americans, WE are the ones that matter, not you".
If you've come this far in this comment, here's my theory on how the use of the word America and American changed in the English language. This isn't fact checked at all btw.
America (continent) was divided into predominantly 3 languages, Portuguese, Spanish and English. Everytime the Europeans who spoke these languages said the word America they probably were talking about their own lands in the continent. If you're a Portuguese, when talking about the continent you would be talking of Brazil more often than not. Same case with Britain. Every affair in America, and the people they called Americans, where in the British held part of the continent, the things that concerned them where the things happening between the 13 colonies and Canada, they could care less of Mexico and everything south because it wasn't theirs. I'm guessing the first people that said "Americans" in English referred to all the settlers in the whole continent, but with the centuries it shifted into the 13 colonies specifically, cause they started using the word as a way of differentiating themselves from Britain, and raising national pride. Fast forward till now, Americans use the word America for the only part of the continent of America they care about. North and South America is now a language relic of the past and to refer to the whole thing they now have to add an s cause it conflicts with the modern meaning of the word in English.
This is gotta be the longest comment I've posted on yt Jesus Christ.
The problem with not accepting North and South America as seperate is that by that logic Africa and Asia aren't seperate... and good luck getting anyone to go along with that.
Of course, you also have the issue that 'Europe' is often accepted to be seperate from Asia... except there isn't any sound logic that seperates Europe that doesn't Also seperate India...
Your murica solution makes sense, and its easy to derive murican as a name for the people, i dont know if people with less southern accents would embrace it but its worth a shot.
Other languages refer to it as just the shortened United States, the only issue with that is deriving a name for the people. Statians?
Northern America would include canada so again doesnt completely work.
Another thought could be to use the last name of the guy who discovered Brazil, but theres the map men arguement of thats not the country he landed in.
A quick search says the first european after the norse to explore north america was Giovanni da Verrazzano. I think Verrazzania and Verrazzians are very snazzy names so thats my pick.
Well. it is a silly argument. For one thing, it was the English who established the custom of calling us “Americans” Short for members of the 13 colonies of North America. For another, no other countries in the Western hemisphere have made a point of calling themselves “Americans” except for the occasions use of the terms for all the inhabitants of the “The Americas: as a general term for the Western Hemisphere. Canadians are quite content to call themselves that, and who among the Truckers now in Ottawa are not proud to do so. Ditto, the Mexicans. The country is the United States of Mexico, with historical allusion to the empire overthrown by the Spaniards. etc.
Seriously? You haven't heard of the term "Yank" for a citizen of the USA?
Most Americans object, so far as they are concerned that refers to only a certain part of the USA... and then you go to that part and they'll tell you it's a smaller subset again...