piclist-bounces@mit.edu wrote:
> peiserma@ridgid.com wrote:
> 
>> I agree, it seems we have only one dissenter. And just out of morbid
>> curiosity, I've asked some of my German contacts this very question.
>> May not get responses until tomorrow due to time zones. But FWIW one
>> German ex-pat I asked says the phrase in question is definitely
>> interpreted as being from the USA.
> 
> I don't disagree with that ex-pat, and never have. The only
> point I was trying to make is that the term is ambiguous, and
> that what it means depends on the context.

That's the point we disagree on. It is not ambiguous. I joined the
thread when someone posted about a German teacher who said in the German
language a Canadian should say Ich bin Amerikaner. This is plain wrong
in the way the word is used in German. You said:

>That may be correct so far (at least for the USA). But don't
>forget, no matter where the teacher is or was, that this was 
>a German lesson, so the usage of "America" in the USA is not
>relevant to the issue, but the usage of "Amerika" in Germany 
>very much is.

Technicality is not relevant here. You said yourself it's the usage of
the word in German that is relevant to the issue. The word "Amerikaner"
*is used to mean* someone from the USA. Period. Notice the emphasis. You
can argue that technically, Amerikaner refers to all people living on
the American continent all you want. But no one uses it that way in
German. And I did ask several Germans and even a Schweitzer just to be
sure. To use the word *in that context* otherwise is going to get you
misunderstood in German (and I strongly suspect in Spanish as well,
despite your assertions to the contrary). 

> I meant to make some people aware of this cultural
> difference. It exists, period. (I'm not the only one who
> thinks that -- there are several pages in the Wikipedia that
> talk about this ambiguity.) What people do with this --
> ignore it, fight it, integrate it -- is not really my business.

Yes, and people should be aware of it. Other cultures/people/languages
do use the word America to refer to the continent. But that's distorting
the picture IMO. When someone says "I am American" to a German, this is
understood to mean the USA. Not Canada, not Mexico, not Brazil. I
strongly suspect this holds true of Spanish-speaking people too.
Language is not about being technically correct, its about the meaning
and how the words are used. 

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