Ed Leafe wrote: > On Apr 7, 2010, at 10:34 AM, Ricardo Aráoz wrote: > > >> North America, Central America and South America are SUBCONTINENTS of >> the American continent. >> > > That is not correct under any geologic interpretation. NA and SA formed > completely separately (SA was originally joined with Africa), and have > drifted together over time. The Central America/Carribean area is simply > where the two masses have butted against each other and pushed enough > material upwards to form dry land. This joint between the land masses is what > caused the recent earthquake in Haiti. > > >> America is a continent. >> > > Again, no geologic basis for this. > i) We were not talking about geology. ii) You are partially right : (*) """The *Americas*, or *America*,^[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#cite_note-0> ^[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#cite_note-dictionaryDotCom-1> (Spanish <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language>: /América/, Portuguese <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_language>: /América/, French <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language>: /Amérique/, Dutch <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language>: /Amerika/) are the lands of the Western hemisphere <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_hemisphere> or New World <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World>, comprising the continents <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continents> of North America <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America> and South America <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_America> with their associated islands <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island> and regions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region>.""" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas But OTOH : """*América* es el segundo continente <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continente> más grande del mundo, después de Asia <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia>... snipped ...Debido a su gran tamaño y sus características geográficas, América es dividida tradicionalmente en América del Norte <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica_del_Norte>, América Central <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica_Central>, las Antillas <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antillas> y América del Sur <http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica_del_Sur>.""" from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/America which also supports my thesis that America is a Continent and North America a subcontinent. And also : """*Central America* (Spanish <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language>: /América Central/ or /Centroamérica/) is the central geographic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography> region <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region> of the Americas <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas>. It is the southernmost, isthmian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus> portion of the North American <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America> continent <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent>, which connects with South America <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_America> on the southeast.""" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_america And also: """Central America is going through a process of political, economic and cultural transformation that started in 1907 with the creation of the Central American Court of Justice <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_American_Court_of_Justice>.""" (same origin as previous) which clearly indicates Central America has a very real existance.
> >> There is NO country named America, there is a >> country named United States of America (notice the "of") that belongs to >> the North American subcontinent of the American continent. >> > > > There is no single place named 'America', period. The name 'United > States of America' is an unfortunate "by committee" artifact that we're > unfortunately stuck with. > Not true, see """"""The *Americas*, or *America*,^[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#cite_note-0> ^[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#cite_note-dictionaryDotCom-1>""" from (*) in previous paragraph. Also : """*América* is a city in the province <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Argentina> of Buenos Aires <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenos_Aires_Province>, Argentina <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina>""" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9rica,_Buenos_Aires_Province """*America* is a town in the Dutch <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands> province of Limburg <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_%28Netherlands%29>. It is a part of the municipality of Horst aan de Maas <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_aan_de_Maas>, and lies about 16 km northwest of Venlo <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlo>.""" from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America,_Netherlands > You should be sympathetic to the evolution of words to adopt common > meanings rather than their original precise meanings. The term 'Yankee' (or > 'yanqui') is used throughout the world to mean people from the USA, but you > might be surprised to find that the southern half of the the USA would > strongly object to the term, as it originally referred to people in the > northeastern US (New England) who were of English descent. During the US > Civil War, the South referred to their northern enemies as 'Yanks' or > 'Yankees'. > No, I'm not surprised at all, I usually use the term Yank to try and further irritate some of our friends here (with not much success, I admit). > IOW, don't be so pedantic about a word having drifted from its original > meaning to something different. > i) They have drifted because of use. I am therefore entitled (without being pedantic) to try and drift it again to a more precise meaning. ii) I wouldn't mind so much if you called people from USA something else, "assholes" or whatever. But you are using a term that properly addresses my country as well as many other countries too. iii) It is good to remind some of you people that you are not the center of the universe, not even a continent nor a subcontinent, but just one of many countries. Kind of telling them "memento mori" or "respice post te. Hominem te memento" or the better known "sic transit gloria". Many of your leaders would need a slave at their backs whispering this. --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html --- _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
