Geniune Question:
Why do Americans use the term 'American' exclusively for the U.S. when 'America' refers to a whole continent? How do you think this affects global perceptions of the U.S. and its relationship with other cultures?
so you think the term "americans" is used solely because they wanted it that way? sorry to break it to you but the majority of the world uses american to describe people from the US. what else do you want to call them? united state-ians? i feel like this has occured more because bordering countries take PRIDE in where they were born so if they were to identify themselves it'd be as a proud brazilian rather than an umbrella term "american". you're not the victim here in any way, if anything it's to signify their separation from britain (as always)
The continent model varies between all sides of the world. Thus creating an issue where certain parts see N/S America as one and another as 2 separate parts.
It also doesn’t translate well between some languages like Spanish. Personally I don’t see anyone else as an American unless you’re born in the US or hold citizenship.
I was also thinking about the continent difference too! With the continents, I feel like an unbiased alien would see them as two different continents, and the one-continent viewpoint (which is fine, by the way) is the culture-dependent one. I feel like the evolution of the word American to refer to just the country isn't supposed to say anything about South America - I think the colonists were too busy distinguishing themselves from Britain.
And if the word "American" suddenly started referring to the entire continent(s) in the English language, then it wouldn't change any perceptions. Trump would not go "Oh yes, our fellow Americans, we must invite all Americans to immigrate into our country", he would (1) change the name back or (2) come up with another name for just the US and only use that word. (I can already imagine him asking Elon Musk to edit all Twitter posts or something.)