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Originally Posted by Sparrow
When we in Europe talk about 'Americans' we generally mean people from the U.S.; although anyone in South, Central or North America is also an American.
I often wonder - do non-U.S. Americans mind us using 'American' in that way?
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For this reason, I tend to try to use 'USA' when I can and be context sensitive about when I use 'Americans' to refer to citizens of USA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
(I'd be a tad disconcerted if the term 'European' was assumed to refer to a particular European country.)
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Agreed - but it's not a big deal at all, and I try to remember that USA is such a vast, varied country, in many ways as varied as Europe. What *do* irk me, is the use of 'EU' to refer to Europe - it's far from the same thing.
And with regards to the OP: if we weigh in options such as higher taxation in many European countries, that US is overall a more uniform market (think of Amazon having to negotiate deals with phone companies for each European country), legal issues, I'm not surprised the market looks like it does.
Also, most people I know don't read fiction in English, and I would guess that the smaller the market is, the longer time it will take for a new - expensive - technology to penetrate and be developed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kazbates
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As a side note, I don't tend to think of people living in the UK as European. I know that the UK is now a part of the European Union, but, for as long as I can remember people have made references to "the United Kingdom and Europe". 
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Geographically, culturally and historically Britain is certainly part of Europe.