Just the latin names then?
Help name the moons of Pluto
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
Just the latin names then?
I don't see why not. Just like the other planets.
I speak French, so I'm already calling them "la Terre" and "la Lune". Adding an "a" at the end doesn't quite have the same ring for me. In fact, it sounds a bit ridiculous.
I voted for Cerberus and Persephone.
That's fine, as long as the definition is consistent. The reason the current definition of planet is so stupid is that it was chosen not for scientific reasons, but for a political one-- to limit the number of planets in the solar system. But what difference does it make how many there are?
I think it discounts most, if not all, planets. Certainly all gas giants.
And I speak Italian, which means I call them "la Terra" and "la Luna". I just like the idea of everybody calling them the same.
Mass Effect is one of the few sci-fi settings (or at least one of the few recent ones) I can think of that avoids this trope. Humans are from Earth, obviously, and then there are the asari from Thessia, the turians from Palaven, and the salarians from Sur'Kesh, among others. Alien names are also treated as common nouns and not capitalized, as is the case with the word 'human.' Maybe it's not as unique as I'm thinking, but I found it kind of refreshing.
Ah now that's completely different. I don't want to speak latin, but forcing everyone to speak italian sounds perfect.And I speak Italian, which means I call them "la Terra" and "la Luna". I just like the idea of everybody calling them the same.
Interesting that in both your languages both nouns are female. In German, Earth is female but the moon is male =)And I speak Italian, which means I call them "la Terra" and "la Luna". I just like the idea of everybody calling them the same.
And while in Italian (and in French, too, I believe) the sun is male, our German one is female
Interesting that in both your languages both nouns are female. In German, Earth is female but the moon is male =)
And while in Italian (and in French, too, I believe) the sun is male, our German one is female
I think there are symbolic reasons why one would associate the moon with the female gender, but maybe it's just my linguistic bias showing.
Yeah, I've thought about it as well, and I think there must be some kind of climate-related reason at work here.I think there are symbolic reasons why one would associate the moon with the female gender, but maybe it's just my linguistic bias showing.Interesting that in both your languages both nouns are female. In German, Earth is female but the moon is male =)
And while in Italian (and in French, too, I believe) the sun is male, our German one is female
I think this calls for an extra thread as we need a lot of feedback from members from other countries so that we can compare.
Not really. See the article I linked above. "Terra" is just the Latin word for earth, as in "terra firma;" it's not the name of a deity like the other planet names. As I said, Tellus would be the correct name if you wanted Earth to be named per the same Roman-deity convention as the other planets.
I think the best solution is to keep the dwarf planet category, because it's useful, but to eliminate the paradoxical notion that a dwarf planet is not a planet. A dwarf star is still a star, a dwarf galaxy is still a galaxy, and so on, so that just doesn't make sense. And we have other subdivisions of "planet" as a category, such as giant planets and terrestrial planets. We just need to treat "planet" as a class that has numerous subdivisions.
I went with Persephone and Styx.
Cool. I didn't know Tellus preceded Terra for the name of the deity. I thought they were used as synonymous.
The very reason for having a definition of "planet" is political: what to put on science books for primary schools. Scientists don't need a definition or a list: students do.
Well, that's not entirely true. The idea behind the 2006 IAU conference was to finally come up with a real scientific definition for the term "planet," one that would be based on meaningful physical parameters rather than historical convention and that would be useful as a classification for scientists. I don't think they succeeded very well at meeting those goals, because the decision-making process was rushed and ultimately the result of compromise rather than scientific consensus, but it's incorrect to say that they weren't even trying to come up with a scientific definition, because that was the entire purpose of the exercise.
That's what they wanted you to think.
As Spock would say... fascinating.
Similar threads
