A tad random, but ...
Since my husband and I share a computer, we often write drafts LJ entries in Word or Notepad to finish and post later. We don't always get around to posting them.
I was cleaning up the desktop, and came across the following very, very brief beginning of a post.
Context: The word América in Spanish [can't vouch for any other languages, though I believe this applies to Portuguese and Catalan as well] refers to both North and South America, and americano to people from anywhere in the Western hemisphere. So Spanish speakers often get offended when they hear people use the Spanish words América/americano to describe the United States and its citizens (because of course, most Spanish speakers are americanos and live in América), and some of them also get offended when they hear the English words "America" and "American."
Apparently there must have been a tangential debate on this subject (which I'm assuming was here), but I didn't feel a long reply was appropriate to the topic so I decided to do it as a new post. 'Cept I never posted it. If I'm reading this correctly, I was replying to a native Spanish speaker who was objecting to the use of the word "America" to mean the US in English.
However, without further ado, here it is:
I just sound to myself rude using a term that for me includes a lot of more people, only for a country, that's all.
No, that's my point: you don't want to use the word "America" because América means the whole Western Hemisphere. But "America" and América are false cognates every bit as much as "embarrassed" and embarazada. You wouldn't refuse to use the word "embarrassed" because to you it implied pregnancy, would you?
Okay, so it wasn't that interesting. But the topic (the meaning of the word "America" and its cognates in various languages) is still a topic for discussion, so, um, discuss.
I was cleaning up the desktop, and came across the following very, very brief beginning of a post.
Context: The word América in Spanish [can't vouch for any other languages, though I believe this applies to Portuguese and Catalan as well] refers to both North and South America, and americano to people from anywhere in the Western hemisphere. So Spanish speakers often get offended when they hear people use the Spanish words América/americano to describe the United States and its citizens (because of course, most Spanish speakers are americanos and live in América), and some of them also get offended when they hear the English words "America" and "American."
Apparently there must have been a tangential debate on this subject (which I'm assuming was here), but I didn't feel a long reply was appropriate to the topic so I decided to do it as a new post. 'Cept I never posted it. If I'm reading this correctly, I was replying to a native Spanish speaker who was objecting to the use of the word "America" to mean the US in English.
However, without further ado, here it is:
I just sound to myself rude using a term that for me includes a lot of more people, only for a country, that's all.
No, that's my point: you don't want to use the word "America" because América means the whole Western Hemisphere. But "America" and América are false cognates every bit as much as "embarrassed" and embarazada. You wouldn't refuse to use the word "embarrassed" because to you it implied pregnancy, would you?
Okay, so it wasn't that interesting. But the topic (the meaning of the word "America" and its cognates in various languages) is still a topic for discussion, so, um, discuss.