Thread: saying America when actually referring to the USA

Originally Posted by eisenherz

i hear you, but i do not fully agree with the analogy...
when i say Russia i mean Russia
when i mean the Soviet Union i say CCCP
when i say UK i mean England, Scotland, Wales etc
when i mean England alone i say England

OK, I see But that's you.
I know (at least in 1980-s) many people in the West used to say "Russia" instead of the USSR. I just heard about that.
And here (in Russia), many people still use "England" to name the entire UK. It is very common at least in my country.

Originally Posted by Боб Уайтман

And here (in Russia), many people still use "England" to name the entire UK. It is very common at least in my country.

In Russia many people don't know what UK and Great Britain are. So they use the name Англия. It's a long tradition of ignorance.

Recently I heard someone saying New Zealand is part of British Dominion, instead of the Commonwealth.... etc .. etc.... Isn't 'dominion' a colonialism epoch term???

A Canadian showed us a Canadian dollar bill and a Russian man (technical PhD, very educated senior man) was surprised to see the British Queen on the money. I told him Канада входит в Содружество, он улыбнулся и спросил, в какое содружество...., so such examples abound here.