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Deepcrush wrote:Americans never laugh about that stuff, never forgive and never forget. We get mad as hell, then we come for payback, then we move on. Thats the American way. Mess with us again, you'll get the same twice over.

Rochey wrote:...Hilariously, I once saw a guy on another forum claiming that "United States of America" can't be the real name of the country, because "America" is used more often.

No, the United States of America's name starts with an A. Just like the People's Republic of China starts with a C. The only reason the U.S. gets hammered for this is that we took our name from the continent. Totally should have called it some awesome Amerindian name.

really do not see what your point is here. The conventional short form for USA is United States and the conventional short for PRC is China? Hooray, that's not subjective at all! I guess if Mexico decided to start calling itself the United States as a more literal translation of it's title than we'd be honor bound to do it! Because by god it's in the CIA hand book as 'conventional long form' (in Spanish anyway).

Summary: Calling a country its title is silly. The only reason the USA does it is because of its prominence on the world stage. If it was some back water we'd be called America. We don't say things like 'the Republic let out a new release today' and expect people to think 'Colombia', but if they were important then by Jove we just might.

Also this applies the UK as well since that's short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Also, technically those are subdivided into their own countries in some weird system. So no, that would not count either since UK is its TITLE not its NAME. But they're an important country, so they get away with it.

Off topic: I'd would've have said Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and maybe Uruguay if thought long enough/read up South America that day.

P.S. America was more commonly called The Republic in the 1800s. Just some historical perspective on it.

You are correct in that is the conventional long form. What I objected to is the country's "name" is the United States of America. That is the title followed by its name. It's like saying Mr. Tod Johnson's name starts with "M".

I suppose I am being a semantics whore at this point, but nevertheless!

Edit: Almost forgot, the Republic as a reference to America was used in newspapers/speeches, but not ever in any official capacity. This still happens every so often.

Ok, good, the sarcasim meter is still working and you ARE just an idiot.

So the C.I.A. is wrong...aaaand you are correct? "United States of" is just a title and seperate from our country's actual name America. "People's Rebublic of" is just a title and seperate from the actual name of China. Gotchya.

Well, first of all, this is a matter of syntax which is subjective anyway. It's not like the C.I.A. has some magic license that lets them determine what countries are called. Nice appeal to Authority, dumby.

Secondly, yes all those title are separate from the country. There's the People's Republic, the Q'ing Empire of China (shortened to the Q'ing Empire, typically), etc.

America has a shorter history, so if I wish to get technical there was the 'Confederation' under the Articles of Confederation. The term united States of America was used, but the united not capitalized or emphasized. Secondly the Confederacy contested the United State's right to rule all of 'America' at a later point (losing of course).

Why the hell do you think France has gone through like FIVE separate republics. These titles are important in distinguishing a particular regime from its cultural/geographic entity. We don't call the Germany the Reich anymore, but we sure do call Germany Germany. But good heavens, let's forbid this standard from applying to the United States of America.

So in short, yes, titles are separate from their geopolitical entities. If I asked you to spell China's name it would start with a C. If I asked for the official title, it would start with a P.

Anything else?

Having browsed half a hundred maps or so and failing to find one to say 'America' on it, I totally conceded the point.

Lt. Staplic wrote:I feel dumber for having read that.

Mikey wrote:Yeah, there's a guy whom the world would have been better served if he'd ended up in the reservoir tip.

Anyway, yeah - I think we all know the country's official name, but "America" is a commonly-used colloquialism.