Talk:America (disambiguation)

Obviously refers to the United States

The usage of "America" to refer exclusively to the United States is so obvious and omnipresent, the only possible reason to oppose it is pure and simple anti-Americanism. It is only in the last 10 years that the ridiculous objection to the use of "America" as meaning "The United States" has even arisen.

I challenge anyone to find a reasonably popular English-Language source that actually uses the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States. And I want a source that actually uses it in an article, not simply a dictionary or encyclopaedia that brings about every obscure or imaginary use of every word.

If you were from Brazil, would you say "I'm from America"? No. If you were from Canada, would you say "I'm from America?" No. Can anyone even come up with a rational English sentence that uses "America" in any capacity other than "The United States"? And would that sentence convey its intended meaning to *any* reasonable reader? No, I don't think it would.

Obviously there's a lot of sentiment against it, but it's more an indicator of the profound anti-American bias in Wikipedia editors than any sort of reality. The longer things stay this way, the longer Wikipedia looks idiotic, and the more obvious the anti-American bias becomes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sephalon1 (talk • contribs) 05:09, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I will reiterate this. Under no circumstance does anyone who speaks English natively use the word America to describe the North American and South American continent. Nobody who uses the English language natively used the term American to refer to anyone other than a citizen of the United States. What is so hard about that? So can I go on the Spanish wikipedia and complain that you do not get to word something this or that way? No. You can't object to a language. The neutrality of this crap is severely in question here. Someone flag neutrality again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.47.249 (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikpiedia's of all languages are supposed to reflect a worldview. No one nationality owns a wikipedia and gets to suppress dissenting views just because it happens to be the largest speaker of some language (a language it didn't even originate, yet somehow feels a right to). Go be an ugly american elsewhere.65.0.96.247 (talk) 01:14, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. Egypt is not called Egypt in Arabic or Egyptian, Japan is not called Japan in Japanese. We might as well change everything here to Mandarin since that's what most people speak! --Aizuku (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with the 2 comments above. This page should be moved to America (disambiguation) and "America" should redirect to United States. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I never refer to the USA as America and I cringe whenever I encounter other people doing it. Not everyone is like you all say (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 07:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC))

You are not a reliable source. - SudoGhost 12:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

If you'd like some examples of English-language sources that actually use the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States, do a Google Books search for the phrase "Columbus discovered America". Deor (talk) 12:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The argument isn't that "America" is never used to refer to anything other than the United States, it's that the overwhelming number of English speakers use "America" almost exclusively to refer to the United States. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:39, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

To determine primary topic, the issue is, "What are readers looking for when they type in "America" as a search term?" This is something you can check by googling America -wikipedia. Kauffner (talk) 16:00, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We don't know what someone entering "America" in the search box might be looking for, and it seems a slightly odd way to search if one is looking for information about the United States. If someone is trying to find information about America (John Fahey album), for instance, this dab page will help them more than a redirect to United States. Deor (talk) 16:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

"We don't know"? That makes it sound like it's some kind of deep mystery that needs to be pondered. We have the technology. Check the link I gave. No, they aren't looking for the John Fahey album. But quite a few are apparently looking for "America, f*** yeah!" The top two results may be boosted by their URLs. Result No. 3 is the Lonely Planet guide for the U.S. This DAB is set up assuming that the word refers to the countries in North and South America other than the U.S., but this topic does not appear in the Google results. Kauffner (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I can even drop this if the article put The United States as the first selection and mentioned the obvious truth such as.. America, referred to the United States by English speaking peoples or something. Point is, a lot of non-native english speakers putting in their two sense here and this is why this discussion is even here. If left to the people of the UK, America and Canada and so on it would automatically redirect to the USA article. Which is not a neutral way of attempting to relay fact. I guess the Welsh have to call it Wales now because most of us don't call it Cmyru. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.41.239 (talk) 12:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Speak for yourself.65.0.96.247 (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I challenge anyone to find a reasonably popular English-Language source that actually uses the word "America" to refer to something other than the United States
In the sentence "South America" (e.g. "Bolivia is the highest and most isolated country in South America" [1], BBC) the word America does not refer to the United States. Fridek (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That's because "America" and "South Amercia" have different meanings. The challenge refers to "America" used by itself. Try harder. - BilCat (talk) 20:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm from America and I live in Chile. USA is not America. Fitmoos --186.107.109.247 (talk) 15:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

This is none sense! America means America. Chile is not America, it is Chile. When did this none sense start, I've only noticed people doing it 2 years ago. --Aizuku (talk) 02:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Your comment is the nonsensical one. Get over your pompous nationalism, USA doesn't own the term any more than any other country located in the American continent. - 186.124.178.12 (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Two overlooked points

The recent discussions on this page seem to have overlooked the following two salient points:

1. This page is for discussion of the content of the Wikipedia page America, not a forum for general discussion of language or terminology. As the guideline linked above explains, "talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles. Talk pages are not mere general discussion pages about the subject of the article[.]" The last section of discussion seems to be missing any suggestions for improvement of the America page.
2. "America" and "American" are two different words. Users wishing to discuss the content of the American page are welcome to do so at Talk:American. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 22:38, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM doesn't apply to those discussions, they were about the article, and how usage of the word applied to the relevance of where this article pointed (or disambiguated). Discussing why an edit was reverted isn't using a talk page for a forum. - SudoGhost 23:23, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Seriously?

Why is United States of America not on top of this disam list? It honestly baffles me why logic has not been dictated here. When a native English speaker uses the word "America" it is always in reference to the United States of America, that is not up for debate as that is verifiable fact.

America (in the English language) is the equivalent of Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Cuba, Korea, China. Those not being the "official" name of any of the Nations I mentioned in this sentence. The point is, anti-americanism is making wikipedia look stupid. I don't go on the Portugese wiki and demand they mention our definition of America, American and so on.

This is a double standard that needs to be acknowledged by whomever is in charge of this disambiguation page. Put the United States of America on top of this list. Than we can work together to get it to redirect to the United States of America article after we stop playing political correctness with Latin Americans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.43.224 (talk) 16:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

United States of America not on top of the list because of alphabetical order. There's no conspiracy to placate Latin Americans in that.Shadzane (talk) 16:02, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't make the current format correct. The most common definition ought to be at the top of the list. There's no obvious reason that alphabetical order should be used, other than that was the previous claimed consesnus. Consensus can and does change. - BilCat (talk) 19:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

This whole article is here to placate Latin American's sensitivities as far as I am concerned. When a monoglot English speaker says "America" he or she does not think of North and South America. There is your proof of the matter, now who is gonna put the United States Article on Top? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.46.203 (talk) 17:25, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Since no reasonable objections were raised here to reordering the list by most common usage, I have implemented the change as the new consesnus. - BilCat (talk) 18:34, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Nobody's raising any objections on this thread because we've all gone through numerous endless threads over it before. Consensus from the previous lengthy debates is to just keep the two alphabetised, and it's been stable that way for a long while. Otherwise there's just constant edit warring and arguing over primary meaning. Rennell435 (talk) 10:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Again, consesnsus can and does change. "We discussed it a long time ago" isn't a valid argument. The primary meaing in English is already established, whether or not some will continue to argue over it. - BilCat (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The miaowing in English is already established. It can refer to the country or the continent (among some other meanings). Have a good senscape. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingerinthevecindaddelchavo (talk • contribs) 00:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

• If you want to see what readers are searching for when they type in "America", google America -wikipedia. I note that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC does not suggest using dictionaries to resolve this issue. Kauffner (talk) 17:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is it that you're trying to convey. I followed your link and the first link is http://www.clubamerica.com.mx/ See also ubuntu. Dark descent have amnesia (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

When I follow the link I get a bunch of different links like "American Airlines", "America's Story from America's Library", "America's Test Kitchen", "America's Got Talent", "America's Army", "Bank of America", "Feeding America". Those are the first seven links - all about America (or as some would call it, the United States). All the links on the first page are about America. None are about the Americas, or South America, just America.

Just right there we have 7 uses of "America" to refer to America. What uses do we have of "America" referring to the Americas. Someone above mentioned "Columbus discovered America" (which is honestly a bit confusing - I was fairly old when I learned that he actually found Hispanola first). Any other commmon usages, or is that it? Anyone claiming "America" typically means something other than America in English should provide a bunch of examples because Kauffner's google search pretty quickly provides a bunch of examples where "America" means America. Readin (talk) 05:12, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

The country is the United States of America The "of America" part in it's name is because the country belongs to the American continent. "America" isn't an official name for the United States like saying... "Mexico" instead of "United Mexican States". The official short name for the United States of America is United States, not America.--190.232.66.20 (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Evidence please. The google search turned up only uses of "America" that referred to America, nothing tha referred to the Americas or anything else. We're not talking about official usage. For article names and links we do common usage. The common usage for "America" is clear - the evidence shows it refers to America. Readin (talk) 13:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

While that might have been true in 1776 - it is debatable, as English language usage was already changing by that time - it certainly is not true now. By the way, you may be surprised to know that there is at least one country in South America where America does mean the "United States", not "the Americas". - BilCat (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

America (ship)

There is another notable ship named America: America (privateer) — Private Armed Ship America of Salem. The captain was Jacob Crowninshield, from a family of shippers that ran the firm of George Crowninshield and Sons of Salem (Crowninshield family). Notable for (among other things) bringing the first elephant ("Old Bet") to America (with Nathaniel Hathorne, the father of Nathanial Hawthorne).
See:

• Goodwin, George G. (1951). "The Crowninshield Elephant : The surprising story of Old Bet, the first elephant ever to be brought to America". Pick from the Past. Natural History. Retrieved 29 January 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Crowninshield, Bowdoin Bradlee (1901). An Account of the Private Armed Ship "America" of Salem: with appendix and five plates. Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute. p. 76. OCLC 3502150. Online: University of Michigan, Digitized Jul 28, 2005

~Eric F 74.60.29.141 (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Any compelling, rational reasons not to move the USA link to the top?

"America" almost always refers to the USA in modern usage in English speaking nations, Europe generally, and around most of the world. The term is usually used to describe the entire hemisphere only in an historic sense (e.g. "Columbus discovered America.") that has long since been supplanted in contemporary descriptions by more specific language like "North/South/Central/Latin America", or by the broad "Americas". Google searches show virtually every use refers to the USA. In at least the first few pages of a Google books search there's only one example of a stand alone "America" referring to the hemisphere generally, and it was written in the 1880s. There are a couple of examples qualified by a "Latin" or "North", but stand alone "America" mentions almost invariably refer to the United States. A regular Google search yields similar results, as do searches of particular news sites like the BBC, which frequently use "America" synonymously with the United States of America. This is appropriate since the country actually has the word "America" in its name, its citizens are called "Americans", and "America" is often used as a short form name even by government sources.

Since the purpose of the disambiguation page is to facilitate users' arrival at the desired article, the most common uses are generally placed at the top. In fact "America" should probably redirect to the United States article given its overwhelming primacy, but at the very least the USA link should top this page. I propose either simply switching the two top category items, creating a new category for "The Americas" (possibly "Historically"), or putting it in "Other locations" (which wouldn't be so bad since there are currently only five entries listed). Other disambiguation pages often have historical subsections while placing the most common contemporary use on top (e.g. Britain or Egypt). Regardless, we shouldn't mislead people by pretending that English speakers use "America" to refer to the nation and the hemisphere at a roughly comparable rate. VictorD7 (talk) 05:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Have you read the section #Seriously above? How to you propose to deal with editors who refuse to even discuss the issue, and will edit war as a group to keep the status quo? - BilCat (talk) 10:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Continue to expose how untenable their position is, and hopefully sway more people to our side. I decided to start this new, more explicitly titled section after scanning the existing page and seeing that no one had any real counterarguments to points made by you and others. Besides, if several of us banded together how many irrational opponents would actually try to edit war with us? It looks like only two editors reverted you last time. I'd certainly support you this time. Perhaps others would as well. If they aren't willing to discuss the matter on the Talk Page then they're in the wrong from an edit warring standpoint, and we'd be justified in overcoming them with numbers and/or persistence. Maybe arbitration if it comes to that, but I'd prefer to settle it here. VictorD7 (talk) 16:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

C'mon guys. We're talking about two consecutive entries that are listed in alphabetical order rather than the supposed (by you) order of their importance. Entries on disambiguation pages are usually listed in alphabetical order or chronological order or some order other than that of "primacy". Do you really want to fight about the order of the two entries following "usually refers to either"? Is either order likely to confuse readers or prevent them from finding the article they're seeking? Deor (talk) 18:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't oppose the change to follow common usage in English (not "importance"), and there won't be a fight. If it's really not a big an issue, as you claim, then you shouldn't care eithr way, and have no reason ot interest in opposing the change. - BilCat (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

What BilCat said. Also, most disambiguation pages are not completely in alphabetical order, especially when there are clear primary uses that dwarf the others. Some pages aren't in alphabetical order at all. In the examples I cited the Britain page isn't in alphabetical order until the subcategories start, there being 17 items listed in the topline section, apparently by usage, not alphabetically, more than the rest of the page combined, and on the Egypt page the modern nation is listed first followed by the "historical" links in chronological order, only switching to alphabetical order when it gets to "other placenames". Given the overwhelming usage disparity, there's no justification for this page not leading with the most commonly sought destination. VictorD7 (talk) 19:27, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; "it's alphabetical" is a poor reason at best, since that's not how the primary topic(s) of disambiguation pages are done. - SudoGhost 22:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, the two topline items aren't in a subcategory the way the other items are, and the "usually" line prefacing them explicitly indicates that they're being listed there due to high usage, so not only are they not required to be in alphabetical order, but a reader would reasonably infer that they're in usage order. VictorD7 (talk) 23:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

America → America (disambiguation) – In common usage in English, the word America most commonly refers to the United States and therefore this page should redirect there. Statistics to back up this point include:

• Page view statistics for America, the disambiguation page: 75723 over the past 90 days, a number that is incredibly high for a disambiguation page that (ideally) nothing is linking to.

• For the landmass, the title Americas already exists and is not going anywhere and is perfectly unambiguous and natural. It boasts 415497 views. That's nothing to sneeze at.

• However, America most commonly refers to the United States. In the same timeframe that article has received 3627820 page views. Clearly we are dealing with an article that more readers are looking for in general. But how many of them put in "America" to do so? I'm glad you asked.

For starters, 75723 readers reached this disambiguation page over 90 days. high numbers such as that are generally seen as an indication that they are expecting to reach a specific topic there. Somehow I doubt that 75723 readers were hoping to hit a disambiguation page. I present the following evidence to support my assertion of a primary topic for "America": the following Google News search of the BBC's website. (The BBC is a British news/entertainment company, therefore presumably a bit more immune to any suspected pro-U.S. bias.) I removed "Latin America", "South America" and "North America" from consideration, because (for example) nobody would expect to reach "Latin America" by putting in "America". Guess how many uses of "America" refer specifically to the United States? No, seriously, guess. Did you guess 100%? Guess what happens when you search Reuters or other news sources? In almost (not quite all) any context, "America" means the United States. (I found - eventually - one other use... for Club América and one for the Copa América, both caused by the BBC disliking diacritical marks!)

See also the semi-recent move of People of the United States to Americans in 2011 here; it might help inform your arguments, although it's definitely a bit different. America should redirect directly to the country's article because that's what readers mean when they search for it in English. Thank you for your time, and God bless America. (And the rest of the world, too! ) Red Slash 20:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC) o

• Support - For reasons given, though we still need to tweak the disambiguation page arrangement either way. VictorD7 (talk) 23:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC suggests using incoming links, traffic stats, and Google rankings to determine which topic "highly likely...to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term". The top results on Google and Bing all refer directly or indirectly to the United States. Kauffner (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)