• Gsus4@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Yeah, I can agree that America is less ambiguous than American, because the former is shorthand for something and only Americas is used to refer to the continent(s) (even if it is still funny that the United States are of “America”, not “the Americas”). But American, the adjective, is more complicated e.g. Organization of American States

    • bus_factor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      That’s a valid and relevant argument. I’m no linguist, but at least to native English speakers, I think there would be different interpretations of that adjective whether it was applied to people or countries. Language can get messy like that.

      “German” can for example either refer to ethnicity or nationality, and some people will be members of one and not the other. We typically assume that it refers to nationality, though, unless context dictates otherwise.