I was watching the
news this morning, one day after the opening Olympic ceremony in Rio and
you know that period during the news when the anchors have no real news
to report so they just banter off the top of their heads? I call it
verbal detritus. One of the anchors said that she cheered when the
American team came out. I know that anchors are probably required to be
college graduates but I don't think this one was paying attention
during Geography 101. It's okay, I am smart enough to know what she
meant but this is what she really meant to say.
There is a
super-continent known as the Americas or the New World. It is divided
into two sections, North America and South America. In North America
there are at least 23 officially recognized independent states or
countries. To the far north is the state or country of Canada. Then
there is a conglomeration of states comprising of the county The United
States. Both those countries are of America. Below that is Mexico and
assortment of other American countries such as Nicaragua, Panama,
Belize, Cuba, Honduras, Jamaica and many more. They are all part of
America and they had teams at the Olympics representing their state in
the Americas. They are all American teams. So "America" isn't just the
United States, it is a whole super-continent.
To further
complicate things for our anchor who wasn't paying attention in class,
there are a couple dozen independent territories owned by countries or
states from the European continent such as the Cayman Islands
(UK), Martinique
(France), Aruba
(Netherlands), Greenland
(Denmark) and many more. So, does that mean France is part of America? I don't know. Maybe a news anchor will be able to tell us.
