USA or america

[PenelopePitstops]

probably a stupid question

are they totally interchangeable? or not?

and if not why?

In general speech, America is short for 'The United States of America'.

We are, however, in the pedants' corner, so I expect people will feel the need to point out that 'America' is actually two whole continents.

thanks astra
if i was writing an essay i should put usa?

I would, if I were you. The USA.

I've lived in Latin America and I know people there often got annoyed with the way "America" was used to mean just the USA, rather than North and/or South America. I'd say USA in an essay if you mean the US rather than the whole of North America (including Canada).

or 'The States'

that's what most Cdns would say

really don't like the expression 'America'

in a written essay I'd put USA (written out first time,then abbreviations)

I'd put "United States of America (USA)" the first time then just "USA" after that.

I agree that it shouldn't be used to refer to just one part of 'The Americas' ... the problem comes when we want to name things from the USA; they are 'American' and there doesn't seem to be an alternative.

True. And we talk about "Americans" to mean just people from the USA (rather than people from Canada or Latin America).

True. And we talk about "Americans" to mean just people from the USA (rather than people from Canada or Latin America).

People in the United States often use US as an adjective. Examples are "US dollars" or "US passport" or "US senator." Americans use that terminology a lot more than Brits do.

But they wouldn't describe themselves as 'US', would they? They may say 'a US citizen' but their equivalent of 'British' or 'French' is 'American'.

I'm not saying it's their fault, btw, it's just a strange fact of the English language - I wonder if there is a difference in other languages ...

Well we talk about the UK, but describe ourselves as British, or English, or Scottish, etc. No-one is UK-ish.

In French it's the same, someone could be from les Etats-Unis, but be Americain or Americaine (don't know how to do accents on here).

Americans never refer to it as America.

Unless they are singing "God Bless America"

You are an American from the United States of America...

Or from the "States"

Or from the "U.S."

Or even in some cases, from the "U.S.A."

EVEN from the "U.S. of A"

but i have never heard an American say they are from "America"

I teach lots of Americans and they do say they are 'from America', as well as from the US or the USA.

Having a Canadian Best Man, I have learned to differentiate between between Americans and North Americans (because there ARE a lot of cultural similarities that you can refer to).

Latin American people would appreciate you using USA

They might refer to it as such because that is what people over here say (I find myself doing that at times) but as an American born and raised and living there for the first 36 years of my life in various parts of the country I don't recall ever hearing an American saying they were from America.

you'd upset a canadian if you called them american!

sorry for lack of caps when i'm in pedants corner but i'm on patientline and caps are a pita to do. i've got a longer reply but it's easy on here.

I think it would be very arrogant of an American to refer to the homeland as "America" as if none of the other countries on the two American continents existed. Ironically Americans do have a reputation of being arrogant. But I find that it is non-Americans who refer to their country as America.

I once heard a call-in on a radio show in the morning in the UK. They were asking "What central American country_?" (can't remember the rest of the question). But the answer they were looking for was Mexico. Mexico is of course part of North America. I hope someone got a slap and a geography lesson at the radio station.