I’ll admit I was rather ignorant growing up and the first time I had a conversation with someone and I pronounced Iran as “I ran” everyone roasted the shit outta me and shut me down, which like fair whatever. But my point is the pronunciation is secondary if you get the concept; that’s kinda the point of language and accents in general. If we have to pronounce every country or place as its residents call it then we should roast and ignore every English speaker that says “Germany” instead of Deutschland.
Or as Americans call it, America.
That makes sense, right? We changed The gulf of Mexico to The gulf of America, so naturally that means you have Canada to the north. The united states of America in the middle, and America (formerly Mexico) to the south.
And all of this on the continent known as North America. Which just above South America.
Earth is stupid.
“Columbus thought he was in India! And did he worry about being wrong? No! He just called everybody Indians, and we still do it today. Why? 'Cause. You want to be an American? You fill out that ballot because you don’t know what you’re doing. Just like when we named this country after the fourth or fifth guy who discovered it, Amerigo Vespucci. Who cares? America.”
– Tracy Jordan
Only on your own maps. The other 95% of the world doesn’t follow this capricious re-name.