D
@indigo said:Did anyone notice that the REAL problem with treating North America and South America two different continents is that they still have the same name? I mean, at least it's a yard in the Imperial System and a meter in the Useful System, but you would just name the two continents "America" and "America". The annoyance about this is that when people talk about "America" even today, they are more often than not actually referring to the "United States of America", which is neither "North America" nor "South America". Of course, you can build a system with this - after all, the European Union has a "Council of the European Union" and a "Europeon Council", which are not to be confused with the "Council of Europe" - but you probably don't want to. (Side note: Less than 1% of the Europeans know the name of the "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy", even though the gal is in theory one of our most important politicians.)
A couple of thoughts when I read this:
The names of the continents (I'm an American*, so I'll go with what I was taught) are not "America". They are "North America" and "South America"; those are distinct names, despite them both sharing the same word.
When people talk about "America" (* or American), usually they are referring to a country, and not a continent. So, it is generally a safe bet that they are referring to the US. This holds true for Europeans - at least, where I'm from and the people that I generally talk to - where it is typically referring to people of British origin (i.e., not Scottish, Irish, Polish, etc).
I guess it just comes down to the audience and context, which admittedly on the Internet is a very broad in nature.