I saw on TV and movies that everyone refers to USA as “America” if I’m not wrong America is continent not a country, so why people refers in that way to USA.
shortgilly
Favorite Answer
U.S.A. is the abbreviation for the formal name. The continents are called "North America" and "South America". The landmass en total is called "the Americas". "America" is an appropriate informal name for the nation U.S.A. because it is the only country in the world with the word "America" in it. Calling U.S.A. "America" follows the same linguistic rules as calling the Russian Federation "Russia" or The People's Republic of China "China". It would not be appropriate to call ourselves United Statesians, anymore than it would be appropriate for a Russian to call themselves Federationese. Furthermore, one word can have more than one meaning, i.e. the word "rose" means both a flower and to get up.
Anonymous
It's kind of like this, There's the continent north and South America. And there's the the country just plain of america. The country america is divided up into states. So there's states and there in America. So there called the United States of America. Kind of like the arm of the body.
?
The continents are North America and South America.
William
United States is the country, America the continent. You are correct.
Anonymous
That kind of bugs me too. It seems like saying an American would include Canadians, Brazilians and everyone in between. I guess we figure it is easier to say "I'm an American" than "I'm a citizen of the United States of America". We're americans, we like the easy way.