jim lama said americans don't say "america" but i would beg to differ. i think it is really rare that americans say "USA" - i think they almost ALWAYS say "america" when referring to their country. hard to provide evidence for this, really, right? to be empirical about it we would need a content analysis. i suggest thinking about speeches made by bush and other leading figures in the US... the word "america" rings to me as what they say - but i have been avoiding hearing anything bush says lately, so what do i know?!
(although i DO read... and man, i was so infuriated when i read the NYtimes article this morning about the new national security strategy... by the strategy itself, yes. but also because bush said he wanted it to be in plain english because "the boys back in Lubbock ought to be able to read it." boys? BOYS? what about men. and women for that matter. oh yeah, that's right. women. 51% of the population. who cares about those women? not bush, obviously.) -yael
