Howard Winter wrote:

>> "USA" does not mean "United States of the Americas", neither "United
>> States of North America", it means "United States of America".
> 
> You can't really judge much from the name 

I disagree -- I can judge from the name that the use of the terms in it are
common knowledge. Every citizen of the USA hears and reads often enough
about the "United States of America". I didn't say that this use is the
only one, but it definitely /is/ a common use; so much I can judge from the
name.

> I am from the "United Kingdom" even though for the whole of my life (so
> far!) we've had a Queen.  

But anybody trying to convince me that the use of the word "kingdom" is
rare in the UK would have a difficult stand :)

> Anyway, why didn't they name it after Christopher Columbus, rather than
> Amerigo Vespucci? 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_continent#Naming_of_America

Mainly because Columbus, up to his death, was convinced that what he had
found was part of India. So he wasn't even in the race of giving the new
continent a name.

Gerhard

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