Talk:Pars pro toto

The Parthenon and The Acropolis in Athens (Greece) is another example?
Maybe I'm wrong, but many people wrongly say The Acropolis (the entire hill and plateau area including the Parthenon building at the top) when they mean only The Parthenon building at the top of The Acropolis? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.210.174 (talk) 14:54, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The term "American" being offensive
So the article claims that Americans (the only demonym they have) calling themselves Americans is offensive, particularly to the rest of those of America (or, in American English, the Americas). I currently live in Korea and have met a thousand and one Canadians here, none of whom seem to take offense at the term, one of whom I've asked if they find it offensive, and they said it's the only term they have for Americans. I think the offense is usually taken by Latin Americans, whose mother tongue has 'estadounidense', the rough equivalent to 'Unitedstatesian' - which is a joke to Americans. Anyway, what I'm saying is that we should alter that phrase. I'm under the belief that we should only say offense is predominantly taken by those in Latin America, in whose culture the term "America" (América) is the equivalent to the English-language culture term "The Americas". In English-language culture, there is no "one" continent "America" because in English-language culture there are seven continents, not six, like in Latin American culture. This would be made understandable to English language speakers by the inaccurate analogy of French people only calling themselves Europeans, when many peoples outside of France are of course European. Anyway, along the same vain, the term 'estadounidense' should then be offensive to Mexicans since their country's official name is Los Estados Unidos de México (The United States of Mexico). cullen (talk) 13:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

inverse
"America (for the United States)" Is this pars pro toto? As far as I'm concerned, the USA are still a part of America and not the other way around. I don't know what you call this, but I'll remove this in a few days, if I'm not wrong.--Ruben 20:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * solved, it is called totum pro parte --C mon 21:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Is not the United States of America also a pars pro toto as the state of Hawaii forms no part of the American continent? Geographically, the state of Hawaii cannot be one of the 'United States of America'. Perhaps that great federal republic ought to be the United States of America and Polynesia.--jglees


 * Because America consists out of more than the U.S. (Namely Latin America and Canada) it can't be a pars pro toto. C mon 07:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"Yankee"?
Should there be any mention of the fact that people in the American South, as a rule, do not like to be called "Yankees" or "Yanks"? That name, in the United States, is understood to refer to a Northerner, but foreigners often use it indiscriminately to describe anyone of U.S. origin. (I know it's not a strict geographical term, but it's along much the same lines.) Funnyhat 23:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Dictionary term
Not to be a jerk but doesn't this article violate the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" policy? That is, is this article about a "thing" or just defining a term? --Mcorazao 05:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Offense about Holland?
The article currently states: “Inhabitants of the Netherlands who live in provinces other than North or South Holland may feel excluded when “Holland” is used to describe their country.”. I never heard about this, and find it hard to imagine that it is really so… The phrase ‘may’ could also indicate that it is speculation. I think this phrase should be removed, I’ve gone ahead and done so, but if you disagree, let me know :). Grauw (talk) 22:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

persia for iran?
Persia was the same size as Iran right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.68.74 (talk) 12:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My guess is that it either refers to the Iranian province of Fars or to the fact that there are non-persian minorities in Iran.130.216.234.125 (talk) 06:08, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Historical use
What about historical usage that was pars pro toto but is now standard? Asia and Africa, in particular, are much larger than Asia and Africa (Roman province); Europe likewise (the originals very roughly corresponding to modern Turkey, Tunisia, and Greece, respectively). Surely there are other good examples.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 10:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Canada
What about Canada, which before confederation referred only to present-day provinces of Ontario and Quebec? 203.145.92.166 (talk) 18:45, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Latin America and South America
Shouldn't it also be added that South America is sometimes used as a pars pro toto for all of Latin America.80.108.31.215 (talk) 18:17, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Iconography
It seems to me that this article could use an example of the use of pars pro toto in iconography, for example there are, I'm sure, some examples of a representation of a person by just one characteristic feature. I can't get my hands on an example which we could use - what I'm thinking of would be something like a caricature of Groucho Marx which just shows his bushy eyebrows and mustache, or maybe a ballet dancer just by feet in pointe shoes, or some other example of a visual metaphor. TomS TDotO (talk) 15:46, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

OR?
I have reverted a recent edit which removed a lot of text. While there can be an argument made that much of what was removed was WP:OR, or at least in need of references, what resulted turned out to be ungrammatical. And examples such a "wheels" for "car" are really standard examples which can be found in plenty of textbooks and reference works, and should not be summarily removed. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Plural?
Yes, the Latin plurals would be "partes" nominative plural of "pars" and "totis" ablative plural of "toto". But does the phrase ever occur in English? Is there need for a plural? TomS TDotO (talk) 12:44, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

The term "Nordic countries" being use in reference to the Scandinavian countries
Hi, I don't know how to edit a page/request an edit for a page, so here: " "Scandinavia" for the Nordic countries " should have 'Nordic' switched to 'Scandinavian'. 2600:387:C:5710:0:0:0:46 (talk) 01:35, 26 September 2021 (UTC)