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.
Eh, they’re all just big and bigger islands, because every land mass is surrounded by water.
You’re wife is right because they are the same landmass. We separate Europe and Africa from Asia due to racism.
We separate Europe, Asia, and Africa because the Ancient Greeks invented the boundaries and terms, and the Romans kept them up.
They lived in the area, so for them, these boundaries were just names given to land on either side of major bodies of water: the Nile, the Black Sea and Rioni river, and the Mediterranean.
They considered Egypt part of Asia for a while, and anything south of the Med as the landmass “Libya.” The Romans kept up the same definitions as maps expanded, and just extrapolated from there.
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 :(
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.
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.
Oceania is the best continent
Always at war with Eastasia.
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”.
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.
They may eventually admit they know it’s technically correct, but you take your life in your hands if you try telling a Canadian that they are “American.” Well, not your life, but they’ll probably stop talking to you for a little while.
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.
Antarctica is severely underrepresented in the Olympics. Not a single medal.
I try to explain this to people…
You mean US citizens. I’ve had “Americans” chime in on that as well, when I explained that for people who are not from the US, that “America” is not just the US of A but all of the Americas, and that Americans are not just people from the US either.
Not just US citizens, but specifically the Anglophone world as a whole. I’ve been to other English-speaking country where citizens of the USA are commonly referred to as “Americans” (when they’re not called Yanks) while the continents are called “The Americas”.
I also colloquially know that the name of the country in Japanese is simply “America” as well with its citizens just called “America-jin”
The relevant Wikipedia article seems to have some interesting insights as to which major world languages opt for which options, but it doesn’t seem to be an overly long list of examples.
The USA isn’t the only America nor the only United States. Maybe when the government collapses we can come up with a better name.
North America isn’t even the first place to be called America
Well, smart Americans call themselves Americans too, and dumb Americans call themselves Americans, even Usamericans call themselves Americans ;-)
There also isn’t a strict definition of when a pond becomes a lake
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.
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.
If Minnesota ever went down to 9,999 lakes, they’d redefine it.
These are BODIES OF WATER, dammit!!! Not something as easily-reclassified like what qualifies as a craft brewery!
You don’t need reclassification to lose a lake; you just need a drought.
Edit: I may have misunderstood you. It’s pretty late, and I should be sleeping…
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.
Regardless of which definition you go with, someone saying North and South America are one continent but Europe and Asia are two separate continents are at the very least being inconsistent
There isn’t really a natural barrier between North and South America, though. Asia has the Urals.
Shall we make California its own continent because of the Rockies?
You know what? You actually do have a point.
They’d have to post a sign at the border warning that continents and mountains may cause cancer…
Okay, that was actually pretty funny
North and South America have the Darién Mountains/Darién Gap
The Urals don’t even stretch all the way across the continental boundary
Again: inconsistent.
Hmmm… You’re right. It does feel a lot more arbitrary when you put it that way.
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.
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.
Italy is a part of Africa. At least, geologically.
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.
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
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✨
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.
