But, since it is a name so long that it cannot be said in full every time it is mentioned, they abbreviate it, and they do so in various ways; There is the official way to do it, which is "United States", which in fact is the one they use the most. But there are also informal ways to abbreviate The United States of America, and that is by simply saying "America"; and it's just that, an abbreviation, which is not even official.

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Furthermore, "America" is not the only informal way to abbreviate the full name, they also often do so by saying "The States"; Even in some cases saying only the initials of the United States (U.S.) can also be pronounced in an informal tone, "The US".

I think that the use of the demonym "American" as if it were a nationality is more controversial than what I explained previously.

Although even that has its moderation regarding that use of the word "American", and that is to consider the different conventions on the use of words in different languages. That is, in English the word American is used to say United Statian* and in Spanish (for example) the word "americano" is used for continental, and people from the United States are called "estadounidenses".

*So in English only the terms "North American" or "South American" are used to refer to continental.

Some Spanish speakers use ‘americano’ instead of ‘estadounidense’ when referring to US citizens. All Spanish speakers don’t speak in exactly the same way. They don’t all use exactly the same words for everything.

There are very few left who use the word americano to denote the "nationality" of someone from the US, and in general most of them tend to use the word "norteamericano", which is also inappropriate because Canadians and Mexicans are also North Americans.

Americano and norteamericano are not exact terms to refer to someone from the US in Spanish, they are only used as colloquial and imprecise synonyms for estadounidense.

Wrong

All you have to do is review several news websites from all Spanish-speaking countries and enter "American" in their search engines to find reports in which THAT word is used and you will find them, and that is the evidence that even if only that word is not used, and whether norteamerican and americano are also used, "estadounidense" is the right word and the others are not. Believe me, I am Ecuadorian and I also lived in Argentina and that is how I tell you, plus if you ever go it will seem that the one that is most used is norteamericano.

And furthermore, the fact that the relativity of the use of the word americano only happens in Spanish is not true; In English the word American is not only used for US citizens, and it is also used for terms that refer to things in the Americas as a whole, such as "Organization of American States" and the "American Cordillera"

So, I asked ChatGPT for verification and got this response:

there is some historical nuance regarding the inclusion of "of America" in the Constitution. The original handwritten copies of the Constitution, including the engrossed copy signed by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, do not include the phrase "of America" after "United States."

The preamble of the Constitution in these original copies reads: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..."

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The phrase "of America" was not included in the text as originally ratified. However, over time, the phrase came to be commonly associated with the official name of the country, and it has been included in later copies and editions of the Constitution.

So while the Articles of Confederation explicitly used "of America," the Constitution itself did not originally include that phrase. It's possible that the phrase was added in later editions or became a customary part of the title, but it wasn't part of the original text as ratified in 1787.

(end of chat session)

America is to the United States as Notre Dame is to the Hunchback. United States is of America not itself America. It derives its long form name by making use of the genitive case "of America," owe to the fact that the name of the hemisphere it was founded on is named America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 by Waldseemuller and Ringmann.

Motivation behind promoting the United States as being one and same as America is the need to justify using the continental term American as if it were a nationality.

United States of America: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth251664/

I and go apologies, I tried to upvote your response but hit the wrong button. Completely agreed with your sentiment... people from the US don't call themselves "Americans" because they're carrying to claim their whole continent group, they're using the term because it's in the country's name, and many of the Europeans were already referring to is by this term. Like you mentioned, if there is any ambiguity, people from the US are quick to clarify, "oh I'm from the US, not another part of 'the Americas'" (using this term instead to describe North + South America). In addition, it may have been useful to use the term American to differentiate themselves from the "other" United States (the United Mexican States). As these are both large countries that border each other, it was probably natural to just differentiate between the two United States with the simplified terms "Mexican" and "American".

*"maybe he will accept the two Americas thing."

I will

If the continents were separated by tectonic plates then America will be parted into 3 (Three) different continents. Most probably it was political and cultural differences which were taken into consideration as well as history when the continents of Europe and Asia were named. Even if people have a the view that America should be two or three different continents that does not explain why the U.S. took the name of the continent to itself. It could had named it Vinland, Leif or other name particular to the indigenous of that part of the continent.

As far as I know, the United States at the beginning was not really a country, but a confederation of sovereign states, that is, almost countries, which is why its name is not very appropriate for a nation, but rather for a continental institution such as the Organization of American States. = The United States of America. The mistake they made is not changing it when they decided to consider themselves one country.

agreed

Manifest Destiny made it happen and what was only a few States of the Union became the United States but they mistakenly used "America" instead of North America unless they were going for the entire continent and annex everything on their path.