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I am a geographer and my student used the term America instead of The USA in his essay and claimed that it was in Wikipedia. Quoting Wikipedia is not allowed in essays anyway. The essay was rejected to be corrected right. I checked Wikipedia, so here I am... is English Wikipedia intended for local US use (4%) of the world population or global? I am aware that America is used as a local term but need to warn of the wrong global use. People from Argentina, Chile ...or Canada are also Americans, the same Irish people, Czhecks, and Italians are all Europeans. Nobody can be so ignorant to claim Europe for him/herself. The citizens of the UK are not been Europeans anymore since Brexit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.77.43.130 (talk) 06:56, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"America" is is not (old error) just a local (US only) term. It's used prominently in all varieties of English to refer to the United States. Most Canadians will be insulted if you call them "Americans", so I would not recommend doing that! If you are teaching geography, then you are doing your students a disservice if you are only teaching one view of the world. You need to teach them to be flexible, and to realize that other cultures and nations may view geography differently than what may be taught in your country. Give them a full education, not just one narrow view of the world. BilCat (talk) 09:44, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Geography is a science, not a "peep talk", so we need to use certain standards with the terminology,... try to convert the US pounds from English to another language wit online (Google) translator... someone will get a translation that one pound is one kilogram and the error will become the reality. Same is with mathematics... similar ignorance with, again The USA and "billion" (wrong understanding the French but adopted into the wrong use) instead milliard...even forced the UK to change it in 1974,...but it was a political decision not linguistic, so the proper use would be still milliard (UK or the USA can not decide how to use the language which became universal)... e.g. none of the EU countries use English as the first language but we use English to communicate sure we use metrics, and milliards, and Celsius...even science in the USA use metrics and the local units are are just for "locals" not global use. My point is...is this Wikipedia a local, the USA language (4% of world population) or is it about the content written in English as global language (96% world population)? 193.77.43.130 (talk) 10:21, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Neither. It about all the countries that speak English as a first language. Take a simple question such as how many continents are in the world. Some people would say 4, 5, 6, or 7, or even 8, depending on what country they are from, and what they are taught. Some people think there is only one correct answer to that question, and that all the other views are wrong. But it depends on how one defines a continent. The English Wikipedia article on Continents is written from the point of view that there are 7 continents, as that is what is taught in most countries where English is a first language. But it does not claim this is the only view, and it presents the other views as equally valid. BilCat (talk) 11:07, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All clear but Wikipedia is not about language but the content. English is not a "local language" but a universal global communication which needs to be with global standards not exotic or local. I am academics but long time ago stopped to use English as "English" - just a communication tool (UL). Term of what is America is just local linguistic as said, could be used as slang for the country. In the United Nations country list there is no such country as America. I was doing a shadow school monitoring in the USA and I am aware about the level of the education there and the general knowledge of people... even the university students there thought that Africa is a country... mentioning that that we need some rules before there is a contamination with wrong ideas. 193.77.43.130 (talk) 13:17, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would be great if geography had a unified international standard over those things that everybody uses (at least, before we get into the finer details of whose standard would prevail), but that's neither here nor there. Right now, there is no such standard, and it's not up to us to create one. We're not an international bureau of the English language, but just a humble internet page. By the way, remember that South Africais a country. Thinking that "Africa" is a country is indeed an error, but not one so big as you make it seem. Cambalachero (talk) 13:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
None is with America as a country, so what's the problem?
Btw... South Africa is a good example to compare with the United States of America to get the idea of wrong use, much better than e.g. European Union which is even not a country but "a trade organisation", ... pretending to be a country... 193.77.43.130 (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking that Africa is a country, is a mistake at least as big as the continent itself. Not sure how else you could measure a mistake like that. How strange to think otherwise.
Long story short: as said the English version of wikipedia is not a national, local or cultural domain (of 4% world population) but became global communication tool. When someone is searching for term America, the USA came first, which is wrong. I believe that the editors are influenced by kind of local patriotism or indoctrinated education, but my advice is, for as sake of a credibility to pass that. The first step would be to put American (world) first and than America for the USA (local)... or declare English wikipedia USA only, so people would post their content to Global English. I believe that most of the English Wikipedia content wasn't created by citizens of the USA? 193.77.43.130 (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You haven't been listening: America generally refers to the US in all native variants of English, not just American English. That includes British English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, Indian English, South African English, and the various African aand Caribbean Englishes. That's why it is, and will continue to be, listed first on this DAB page. BilCat (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The word "America" most commonly refers to the United States of America. That's not the only meaning of it, of course, just like that big city over in Peru isn't the only meaning of Lima. (See Lima (disambiguation)) But it's the thing most people mean most of the time when they say "Lima" in English, and likewise, the country of blue jeans and jazz and lacrosse is the topic most people mean (most of the time) when saying "America" in English. And that's why America continues to redirect to the United States of America. RedSlash18:39, 21 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But of course, the DAB page claiming that "America" is a short form of "United States of America"—when it is clearly and provably synecdoche—is indeed incorrect, which is what the conversation in the section above was referring to. If it's what "most people mean most of the time", then that would support the idea that it should read America commonly refers to the United States, as I suggested there, rather than making an incorrect claim. I really don't understand why pages like this are being policed so vigilantly when there is obvious and persistent contention with the way it reads and is structured, and the alternatives being suggested are entirely neutral and acceptable to both parties. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The suggestion, "America commonly refers to the United States", would clearly not be acceptable to the OP of this section, nor to most who object to "America" being used for the United States. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish by hijacking a discussion from 4 months ago to push a topic from over two years ago. If you actually wanted to reopen that old discussion, it might have been better to open a new coach below. Instead, the hijacking of this topic just appears to be disgruntled sniping. BilCat (talk) 08:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And you think America is a short-form name for the United States of America is? It's not only incorrect, but also objectionable to people like OP. It's not really hijacking, since the sentiment of this section is the same as the one in the section above. Getsnoopy (talk) 17:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:DABCOMBINE, "A single disambiguation page may be used to disambiguate a number of similar terms. Sets of terms which are commonly so combined include: ... Variant spellings." But "Editorial judgement should be used in deciding whether to combine terms in the ways described above. If a combined disambiguation page would be inconveniently long, it may be better to split the disambiguation page into separate pages." Now that I look at Amerika (disambiguation), it would definitely be unwieldy to combine the two. But they should link to each other. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:29, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
