I’ve had an idea. You should all start calling Britain “Scotland”.
Yeah. That one, I’ll allow.
I may be alone.
OK, everybody stop dissing fc1114 right now. It’s a valid question, though what it’s doing in MPSIMS I’ll never know. As for Brazil and whatever, the difference is that the word Brazil isn’t used for anything else, while the word America is.
The answer is, as some people have stated, tradition and its momentum. Also, in many languages (including English and my own mother tongue of Swedish), there is no good word for “people living in the US” or “as of or pertaining to the US” that doesn’t involve the word America. “USers” and “USian”, whatever Aldebaran might think, just doesn’t cut it.
Actually I’m a quarter Scottish myself 
(Rugby sevens!!! Edinburgh festival!! Links golf! Haggis…errr).
Why not explain to these good people the difference between Scotch, Scots and Scottish?!
Maybe all of Britain except Wales could be called Scotland, but I wouldn’t want to piss off the Welsh. Even a Scotsman should think twice about angering the Welsh.
Hm… so we can’t use “United States” either - one may have a hard time figuring out which set of *united states * we’re talking about. 
God forbid someone refer to us just as “the states” - as in, “When I was in *The States * I ate a very large hot dog.”
(sigh) What on earth do we DO about this?!
I don’t hate America. I prefer United States of America.
When you look at a dollar bill, does it say ‘America’ or ‘The United States of America’?
Does a passport have ‘America’? No. The passport is printed with ‘United States of America’
Soooo…is America a country or not? Coulda sworn I was living in a country.
Nothing is stopping you, I guess, from using “The United States of America” in your everyday speech and writings. You’ll get odd looks and stares and all, but hey, it’s a free–whatever this is.
Whoooooosh!
So What??
I believe British passports say “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. So are British people wrong to say they live in “Britain”?
Any Dopers from Brittany in France want to have a hissyfit about this?
I believe some atlases refer to the British isles. So are Irish people wrong to say they live in Britain?
Actually it’s the atlases that are wrong 
To be sure, to be sure.
Yeah right.
The only reason we’d be wary of angering the Welsh is because we know that they’d just become Englands archers again.
1314.
Welsh smelsh.
Oh dear, that made me laugh indecorously loudly. I do sometimes regret that coming from Australia I only have 200 odd years of grudges to call upon.
And… and why do people DRIVE on a PARKway but PARK on a DRIVEway?? Huh? Think about it!
:rolleyes:
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi !!! :d :d :d
But we are United in beating every other country in sport 
Oy indeed :rolleyes: That word has a rather different meaning in–whatever place I’m in right now, especially among those who know a bit of Yiddish.
Separated by a common language, etc. etc. etc…
Oh by the way “America” isn’t a place either (unless you are refering to the USA)… North America, South America and Central America are places. Together they are the “Americas”.