Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.
I remember many years ago I was playing WoW and the conversation in guild chat was about continents so I said that in my country America is a single continent. That moment an American in guild flipped the fuck out and got really mad at me even suggesting that his great country could be in the same continent as mine (Brazil) going as far as saying “that’s so fucking dumb, next you will say Europe and Asia are the same continent?!” which is funny cause eurasia is a thing, what a dumbass.
Mexico is in North America, but try telling that the common trump supporting gringo.
AFAIK, Cuba is on the North American tectonic plate as well…
Yes, but they technically count as “the Caribbean”
I remember when central America was a thing.
Edit: Apparently even considering the existence of Central America Mexico is still North America
North America is entirely defined by the NAFTA. Geography is mostly political.
Geology doesn’t care about your feelings.
A friend of mine went from a school in the US to a French school, and when she said there were 7 continents, everyone including the teacher made fun of her.
Dogmatism goes both ways.
There also isn’t a strict definition of when a pond becomes a lake
When your mom gets in it
Some states do indeed codify this in law, but the definition varies by state. Michigan and Minnesota for two if I’m remembering correctly.
Or when a lake becomes a sea. The Alboran Sea is smaller than Lake Superior. The Caspian Sea is a lake. Everything is made up and nothing is real.
Huh. In my language the difference is that a pond is artificial (generally for farming fish), but apparently that’s a fishpond in English and pond can be natural. TIL.
I try to explain this to people who don’t believe south americans call themselves americans.
This becomes even more confusing with the way people commonly talk in English versus Spanish. In English, residents of the United States of America typically refer to themselves as Americans, and in English “American” typically only refers to someone from the USA. In Spanish, it seems residents of the USA are typically called the equivalent of “United Stateser” and “American” refers more generally to someone from the continent, at least in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world. I once had an apparent native Spanish-speaker online argue that was the correct form in English as well and insisted that the official name of the country is United States (Estados Unidos), not United States of America (Estados Unidos de América), and that America never refers to the country in English. They didn’t appreciate when I asked why in international sporting events the Americans’ shirts always say USA and why the supporters chant “U-S-A” all the time.
Languages are weird. If you’re learning a different language and try to insist that the new language behave the same as your native language, you’re going to have a hard time.
Mostly right but nobody in Latinamerica refers to themselves as American in any language. It would be weird.
That one’s a weird one. We don’t explicitly call ourselves Americans in Spanish because there’s no need to but whenever this comes up in conversation it’s generally agreed upon that we are technically Americans (and then people immediately take the opportunity to dunk on USians for appropriating the word 😅).
Yeah, that’s my point. Being part of the continent is something that almost never comes up. We call ourselves whatever we are and it’s never “Americanos”.
Yep. In Spain and Latin America, there is no separation between North and South. Its just one continent: América
Most romance languages follow that. The 5 rings in the Olympics logo are meant to be continents.
Well, they’re in South America
Right? Continent or not has nothing to do with it.
And yet when you tell people that you mean south americans when you say americans they always freak out.
I think it’s one of those “technically” things, that isn’t useful.
Someone from The Americas is American, technically. That’s how language works.
But I’d venture* that 97.3% of people mean United States when they say “Americans”, or better, it’s what people mean 97.3% of the time. The only time I’ve seen people bring it up is when they’re from a South American country.
So I’d say context and scale of detail/granularity influence the meaning in the moment.
*Totally Made Up Stats
Do those same people freak out when you refer to Mexicans or Canadians as Americans?
It might not be a North/South continent thing.
Yeah, that’s really because the USA doesn’t really have a name, just a description.
Well, smart Americans call themselves Americans too, and dumb Americans call themselves Americans, even Usamericans call themselves Americans ;-)
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
It’s not entirely arbitrary, it’s just based on racism.
Iirc its actually based on some guy assuming a river was a cannal and using it as a geographical border and no one really checking until the border had stuck.
I remember always questioning that one as a kid. The answer I always got was something about mountains. For some reason, I think the true history, like a lot of arbitrary divisions is probably ✨racism✨
You were right too, because continents are only defined by convention. And by the convention I was taught, there’s 3 Americas: South, Central, and North.
In elementary school we were taught that as well, then in middle school we were taught Central America is part of South America, but in high school we were taught Central America is part of North America.
That’s not confusing at all.
I just looked up my old geography textbook from 6th grade to double check if I was remembering correctly. And it’s yes and no. It was indeed North America, Central America, and South America, but they all were regions of a single continent: America.
Could be I was taught that way too. I don’t have any of my old textbooks though.
there’s also like 5 definitions of “species”. Sometimes what seem like simple concepts are hard to pin down
Not always, I’m simple and easy to pin down.
And New Zealand is its own continent! I like that definition
I’m not sure New Zealand is real. It’s not on my maps.
Oh, it’s real. I’ve been there. Beautiful place.
Maybe you need newer maps?
Whoosh :(
Oceania is the best continent
Always at war with Eastasia.
North and South America I can see either way, but splitting Europe and Asia is insane.
Eurasia and Oceania sure, quibble all you like that makes sense to me. But combining the Americas and pushing Africa in with Asia makes no sense to me.
Same. I think having a tiny land bridge shouldn’t be enough when the idea of a continent is to identify the largest masses of land separated by oceans, especially when disconnected land can still be a part of a contenent.
My list would be:
- North America
- South America
- Eurasia
- Africa
- Oceania
- Antarctica
I can see the combined Americas and Africa combined with Eurasia if the idea is land masses that separate oceans, but oceans are as arbitrary as continents so I don’t think that is a useful definition.
There’s two definitions in my language. One for land mass continent (eurasia) and the other is more of a geopolitical continent if that makes sense (europe, asia)
I think English needs the same.
I once tried to find a definition of “subcontinent”, but all I found was that its almost solely used for India and sometimes for dividing North and South America into to two American subcontinents.
I’m of the unpopular opinion that India/Pakistan should be its own continent and New Zealand should be different continent then Australia. Both because they are different techtonic plates.
I always use the one definition that’s gonna annoy the most amount of people.
It’s always Americas because no one else gives a flying fuck
Are you American, then?
Nope, I’m Africa-Eurasian
So… someone else does give a fuck…
It’s hard to have a strict definition when there are only 4-12 of them. We didn’t have a strict definition of planets until less than 20 years ago.
