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Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

1. America contains many countries other than the USA.

2. Regardless, one might rather say that the "America is going woke!" fashion among media pundits is being replaced by "America is rejecting wokeness!" fashion.

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> 1. America contains many countries other than the USA.

Are you a native English speaker? "America" in the singular is universally understood to be equivalent to "the US".

You have to use "Americas" with an "s" to refer to the two continents combined, or "North America"/"South America" to refer to them individually.

The Economist originates and has primary readership, in the USA. In that country, the term "America" is used to refer to "United States of America." When referring to the American continents, the common terms are "Americas" (note the plural form) or the explicit forms North, Central, and South America. Most people in the United States are aware that the United States does not span the entirety of any or all of the American continents. As a simple example, most Americans are aware of the country north of the USA border called Canada, which is also in North America.

Hope that helps.

The Economist is a British newspaper. HQ London, editors British.

That said, ‘America’ is synonymous with the USA in writing and conversation here (and elsewhere in Europe in my experience).

> The Economist originates [...] in the USA

The Economist is a British publication.

Someone will probably downvote you for making the irrelevant mistake saying US vs UK, but your point is absolutely correct that “America” is colloquially the name of the USA, not a continent or set of continents, in both US and UK English.

I suspect OP knows this, and is fighting a battle to try to change how Americans speak their own language — it’s not rare, in my experience, for people in other countries of the Americas to be annoyed by this usage.

> America contains many countries other than the USA.

"The Americas" contain multiple countries. "America" is just another name for United States of America. North/South/Central is used when talking about the continent. But you knew that.

And I get it, it used to bother me when I was a kid too. I resented Americans for taking the continental name for themselves. But then real life arrived and that's just how it works in English and trying to fight is pointless.

Being deliberately obtuse or combative about this usage of the word America is just bad faith and detracts from the point you're trying to make.

1) No it doesn't

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