I always find it funny when I read statements about Europe as if there existed something like a European culture. Europe is not a nation, and European nations do not share the same culture. Sure, several values are shared, but the differences can be great.
PS: calling the USA America, that makes me smile, too!
Being lectured by Europeans that "calling the USA America" is somehow "funny" is in itself funny. It is a common refrain that perhaps demonstrates a lack of knowledge of idiomatic English. It certainly is a case of haphazardly leaping to the conclusion that Americans are arrogant.
The poster did not use the word "America" but "American". That is simply the correct demonym for the USA in the English language, and is used internationally. Alternatives have been proposed, like "US-American", but they have never caught on and have always been completely unidiomatic. Other languages do make this distinction, like "estadounidense" in Spanish. Perhaps usage of the term "americano" in Spanish could trigger your smirk of superiority, but not that of the English term "American".
Hello, I'm sorry that my comment was understood with such a negativity. I wasn't trying to "lecture", nor did I want to imply any "arrogance" on anyone, seriously!
Then you have not traveled to central america. When I first went down, I'd always introduce myself as an American. I would get amused incredulity in return. They see themselves as Americans, and rightly so. The misguided superiority complex we seem to maintain up here is petty, and your comment drips of it. Let's say you were 80, and your second 40 years mirrored your first forty. How many individuals would you guess you spoke with? The population of the Americas combined is ~1 billions (2008)[google search].
It has nothing to do with an alleged superiority complex, and is just a matter of language.
"But why this term "America" has become representative as the name of these United States at home and abroad is past recall." –Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894–1940, p. 100.
Well, in Spanish-speaking countries (not just Central America) you could just use the term that already exists in Spanish to resolve this ambiguity (which is basically the same as your first, only derived from the Spanish for "United States" by Spanish rules): Estadounidense.
Note that I already posted about "estadounidense" above. That's perfectly fine for Spanish. But speaking in English, one says "American", not because of a "dripping superiority complex" as stated above, but just because it's idiomatic.
In a sense, what the Central Americans are getting offending over is a false cognate. And false cognates can often lead to these kinds of problems: if I referred to trousers as "pants" around Brits, I get yelled at for being a stupid American. There are countless examples of this. This is by no means a problem unique to Americans or unique to the English language. While travelers should be aware of local idioms and the potential for false cognates, they can't exactly be blamed for lacking perfect knowledge either.
All other English-speaking countries use the term "American" in this way. Note especially that Canadians share the same idioms, speaking of America and Americans (although they might favor using "the States" over "America"). Also note that Canadians colloquially use "North America" to mean the USA + Canada, leaving out Central American countries.
> Canadians colloquially use "North America" to mean the USA + Canada, leaving out Central American countries.
Just for the record, this doesn't shock me. While Americas are geologically two, I've always been taught about North, Central an South America from a geopolitical point of view.
Your life experiences matter not to the European superiority complex. It has been decided a priori that this behavior is wrong. Being 400 years old instead of just 40 would serve only to increase the magnitude of your wrongness tenfold.
Hello, "European superiority complex", really? Please, come on! First of all, superior wrt to whom? And, especially, you use again "European" after my comments about the lack of a European culture? Oh dear, we're entering an infinite loop :-)
Dominion of Canada -> Canada (I think they dropped "Dominion of" some time ago, though)
Kingdom of the Netherlands -> Netherlands
Federal Republic of Germany -> Germany
It's a fairly common abbreviation style, and USA is the only country that has "America" in its name.
If the OP thinks that the USA is any more of a monoculture than Europe is, perhaps he should spend some time in Manhattan followed by some time in Luckenbach, Texas. :-)
> If the OP thinks that the USA is any more of a monoculture than Europe is, perhaps he should spend some time in Manhattan followed by some time in Luckenbach, Texas. :-)
I don't have enough information to comment on your example, but I suppose that in every small village on Earth you'll always find the progressive and the conservative guy, and you'll always find a different environment in a big city than in the countryside.
My comment was more to point out that in Europe each people still has his uniqueness. You know how Swiss people are proud of their neutrality, Finnish school system is (one of) the best in the world, Englishmen love their queen, Greeks invented democracy and Italians are immune to Stendhal Syndrome? Well, none of those sentence makes any sense if you substitute the national adjective with "European".
Europe being not a nation is not only a matter of traditions, but of everyday life as well. We don't share a television system, which would be anyway complicated by the multitude of languages. We don't follow political debates in other countries, and newspapers will report about foreign election only for a handful of states or when an extremist party wins. We have the football European Champions League final, but it's nowhere like what I heard about the Super Bowl, with stars and celebrities, because we don't share stars and celebrities.
Maybe this is just a case of "far away, thus homogeneous". For example, some time ago I was talking about south-Asian cuisine, when suddenly I found myself wondering how I could talk about a south-Asian cuisine. Does a south-Asian cuisine even exist? What would I do if I traveled to China and entered a "European" restaurant serving both pizza and haggis? I'd run away while screaming!
Everything you said about the uniqueness of European countries applies to the uniqueness of American states or regions, so I'd say it's case of "far away, thus homogeneous".
PS: calling the USA America, that makes me smile, too!