Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 November 19

= November 19 =

Dioceses in German
According to Roman Catholic Diocese of Aachen, the German name for this diocese is "Bistum Aachen". According to Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany, its dioceses are named "Sprengel ___". According to Diocese of Berlin and Germany (Russian Orthodox Church), the German name for this diocese is "Berliner Diözese der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche". What's the difference between Sprengel, Bistum, and Diözese? Is there some semantic difference between the words, or is it just a Protestant-versus-Catholic-versus-Orthodox thing, i.e., after the Reformation the Protestants decided to use a different term from the established Catholic term, and the Orthodox picked a third term when they expanded westward? 120.21.136.168 (talk) 05:42, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * In the context of administrative divisions of a Church, Bistum and Diözese are fully synonymous, whereas Sprengel is a hypernym: although each Diözese is a Sprengel, its parishes are also Sprengel but not themselves Diözesen. --Lambiam 08:19, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Canadian usage of "North American"
It is my impression, from my time living in Canada, that Canadians typically use "North American" to mean "American or Canadian", and do not include other countries that are geographically part of North America (Mexico, Costa Rica, a little bit of France, a not-so-little bit of Denmark, etc). I think this probably ought to be mentioned at American (word), assuming it's true.

Is it true? Does anyone have a good source? --Trovatore (talk) 23:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I'm not a good source, but I'm Canadian and I often do that -- the mental picture that goes with it is that the physical continent called "the Americas" is sensibly divided into "North America" and "Latin America". (Oceanic islands?  Never mind those.)  It makes some sense on cultural as well as linquistic grounds, but I'm not attempting to defend it; I'm just saying that it happens.  --174.89.144.126 (talk) 03:22, 20 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Trovatore -- Excluding Mexico and southern areas is basically what Wikipedia calls Northern America. Greenland can loom large on the map, but both Greenland and St. Pierre and Miquelon have rather small populations (certainly when compared to the U.S. or Canada)... AnonMoos (talk) 03:29, 20 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Another Canadian here. North America means Canada and the US to me too, and I've never heard anyone include Mexico or those other bits. BTW, American (word) is incorrect AFAIK: we never never never refer to ourselves as Americans (even more so in these ridiculous times). Clarityfiend (talk) 06:47, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Never ever. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:23, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing that you're referring to this passage:  What are you disputing here?  "Rarely" includes "never".  How much more rare do you want something to get, than never? --Trovatore (talk) 20:35, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In my version of English, "rarely" excludes "never". Clarityfiend (talk) 13:25, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not difficult to find textual attestation of Canadians calling themselves Americans, though I don't know it was ever common and anyway it's very probably dated. — kwami (talk) 21:58, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Mexico kind of overlaps, as it was a party to NAFTA but is also part of LATAM. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:32, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In terms of physical geography, Mexico is unambiguously part of North America, and that has nothing special to do with NAFTA or any other political construct. But my question was about the adjectival form North American, as used specifically by Canadians. --Trovatore (talk) 18:44, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
 * In the 2006 Canadian book by Eric Helleiner, Towards North American Monetary Union? - The Politics and History of Canada's Exchange Rate Regime, the phrase "North American" appears to be specifically Canada plus the US. Though even when not followed by "Union", that's the context. — kwami (talk) 02:40, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * However, the question asked about "typical" usage. Is there some way to investigate this via a corpus? --174.89.144.126 (talk) 07:44, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You'll need to check that Mexico is not included. Most texts using the term "North American" do not allow a definite determination of the intended scope. But if the text contains a phrase such as "Canada and the U.S." or "the USA and Canada", and not the word "Mexico", it is very likely a hit. --Lambiam 11:10, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Words can have multiple meanings depending on context. I am sure that there are times when I (an American) have used "North American" to mean "US + Canada", if the context made it clear that that was what was meant. That doesn't change the fact that I know that Mexico is in North America and does not prevent me from having used the term "North American" in a way that included Mexico when that meaning was relevant to the context. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)