If another country in North or South America renamed themselves to just "America", would you get mad?

Answer 1

There is no country officially named America. It is a common designation for the United States of America used throughout the world.

Countries in South America have longer names, usually the "Republic of ..." They are called the shorter name by general practice. Why would they or Canada or Mexico, etc change their name?

The official name of Mexico is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, which I assume is United States of Mexico in English.

I think that you can rest easily. Other countries are just as proud of their names, official and common, as you are of the U.S.A.

Answer 2

Actually the name for what you guys call "American" is "Norteamericano" in Latin America, because "Americano" refers to North, Central or South America. So in that sense they do allready refer to themselves as Americans too.

Famous quotes such as "America is ungovernable" by the South American liberation leader Simon Bolivar demonstrates this. He said that after his experience in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Peru.

However, if one such country would rename themselves the Republic of America, it is likely that in English it will be known as "the RA" or something similar, to avoid ambiguity. A similar thing happened in Africa, when the country Zaire renamed itself to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's northern neighbour was "the Repulic of Congo" or "the Congo" for short. Zaire just became known as "the DRC".

A similar thing happened with Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) and China proper (the Peoples Republic of China). Anyway, I'm sure there will still be "real Americans" who will they stole the name, but there will be no need. English will probably retain the term "Americans" for US citizens, and invent another name for people of the "RA". Or the language will leave it to context and render the one term non-PC, as is the case with "Indians" (native Americans) vs "Indians" (citizens of the country India).

Answer 3

Well not really. Only I would say that problably he or she were talking about USA. But I think that it you have a point there :).