Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Eurasia and Oceania sure, quibble all you like that makes sense to me. But combining the Americas and pushing Africa in with Asia makes no sense to me.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Same. I think having a tiny land bridge shouldn’t be enough when the idea of a continent is to identify the largest masses of land separated by oceans, especially when disconnected land can still be a part of a contenent.

      My list would be:

      • North America
      • South America
      • Eurasia
      • Africa
      • Oceania
      • Antarctica

      I can see the combined Americas and Africa combined with Eurasia if the idea is land masses that separate oceans, but oceans are as arbitrary as continents so I don’t think that is a useful definition.

  • Dagnet@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I remember many years ago I was playing WoW and the conversation in guild chat was about continents so I said that in my country America is a single continent. That moment an American in guild flipped the fuck out and got really mad at me even suggesting that his great country could be in the same continent as mine (Brazil) going as far as saying “that’s so fucking dumb, next you will say Europe and Asia are the same continent?!” which is funny cause eurasia is a thing, what a dumbass.