Definition Paper American

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Introductio, a small work designed to accompany and explain a wall map and globe executed by Waldseemuller. In this work two names were suggested for the "fourth part" of the world, one Amerige (pronounced A-mer-i-gay with the -ge from the Greek, meaning "earth"), and the other America (in the feminine form, parallel to Europa and Asia). The latter form was placed on Waldseemuller's maps of 1507, and their wide circulation brought about the gradual adoption of the name. Waldseemuller was aware of only South America as a continent, but Gerhardies Mercator thirty years later extended the designation to both continents.
Paradoxically, the word "American" that was first used to designate people from South America is now used to refer only to U.S. citizens. Even though it is right to say that a citizen of the United States is an American, it is also right to say that a citizen of Central or South America is an American too, since the definition of America is "of or ...

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