Proposal: Uranus et. al. should no longer be called "plane-ettes".

[halfeye]

Sure, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune wander, but they don't essentially have surfaces, they may have some sort of solid deep within, but that's not what they are in the main.

[DavidSh]

They clearly have visible surfaces, just not visible surfaces of anything solid. A lot of people are fine with talking about surfaces of liquids, and some even go along with talking about surfaces of clouds.

[Khedrac]

And when the wind gets going the division between "sea" and "atmosphere" gets pretty blurred here on earth.

Also, you seem to be operating under a misunderstanding about the derivation of "planet" - it has nothing to do with the derivation of "plane".

Planets are so called because they were points of light that 'wandered' in the sky - the word comes from the Greek for 'wanderer'.

Plane comes from the Latin for a plane (not to be confused with the plane tree which comes from the Greek for 'broad' via Latin).

So - they are not called "Plane-ettes" in the first place - they are "wandering stars".

[halfeye]

And when the wind gets going the division between "sea" and "atmosphere" gets pretty blurred here on earth.

Also, you seem to be operating under a misunderstanding about the derivation of "planet" - it has nothing to do with the derivation of "plane".

Planets are so called because they were points of light that 'wandered' in the sky - the word comes from the Greek for 'wanderer'.

Plane comes from the Latin for a plane (not to be confused with the plane tree which comes from the Greek for 'broad' via Latin).

So - they are not called "Plane-ettes" in the first place - they are "wandering stars".

Yeah, but they're very different from Earth. There are clearly two bunches, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

[Mastikator]

But we do already have a special designation for Neptune, Uranus, Saturnus and Jupiter. They're all gas giants. Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury also have a special designation, they are all terrestrial planets.

[OracleofWuffing]

If we define planets based off of the state of matter on their surfaces, Pluto gets reinstated as a planet- which admittedly has its supporters, but mostly out of inertia. Similarly, Earth loses its planetary status, as the majority of its surface is liquid. Admittedly, the notion that Earth is more special than all the other points of interest in the universe also has its supporters, but they generally are not associated with the scientific communities that research space stuff.

[Khedrac]

But we do already have a special designation for Neptune, Uranus, Saturnus and Jupiter. They're all gas giants.

That's what I grew up being taught, but it's not what they are now!

Jupiter and Saturn as 'Gas Giants', Uranus and Neptune are now 'Ice Giants' whatever that means.

[Chronos]

I've long favored just throwing out the term "planet" entirely, an just referring to bodies as rockballs, gasballs, or iceballs. Earth, Luna, and Ceres are all more like each other than any of them is like Jupiter or Neptune.

[Mastikator]

That's what I grew up being taught, but it's not what they are now!

Jupiter and Saturn as 'Gas Giants', Uranus and Neptune are now 'Ice Giants' whatever that means.

I've heard that term before but never considered that Neptune and Uranus couldn't be both gas giants and ice giants. NASA probably calls Neptune an ice giant because they think it might have an "ocean of super hot water" deep within the extremely cold hydrogen/helium atmosphere.

[halfeye]

I've long favored just throwing out the term "planet" entirely, an just referring to bodies as rockballs, gasballs, or iceballs. Earth, Luna, and Ceres are all more like each other than any of them is like Jupiter or Neptune.

I dunno about Ceres. From what I've heard that's mostly water ice, and would be liquid for the short time until the water evaporated in Earth's orbit.

If we define planets based off of the state of matter on their surfaces, Pluto gets reinstated as a planet- which admittedly has its supporters, but mostly out of inertia.

I don't see that. My understanding is that Pluto and the other Kuiper belt objects are largely snowballs that would become smaller iceballs or even comets nearer the sun. Haumea would presumably break up due to it's rotation rate if it melted.

Similarly, Earth loses its planetary status, as the majority of its surface is liquid.

The surface is infinitesimal, the main body of the Earth is rock allegedly solid most of the way down, but somehow flowing too.

[DavidSh]

I dunno about Ceres. From what I've heard that's mostly water ice, and would be liquid for the short time until the water evaporated in Earth's orbit.

Since we have put a probe in orbit about Ceres, we have a very good idea of its average density, which is more than twice that of water. (JPL says 2.162 g/cm³) So there must be a good part of it that isn't water ice.

[Peelee]

Luna

Why'd you suddenly switch to Italian?

[OracleofWuffing]

That's what I grew up being taught, but it's not what they are now!

I was taught that Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars were "Inner Planets," and the others were "Outer Planets," with the distinction being that the asteroid belt separates the two. I think the intention was these terms applied just to our solar system, but thinking about it, it's not wrong to refer to planets outside our solar system as Outer Planets, either. I don't think they taught us any significance behind why we have the distinction, though, so it might have just been fill-in-the-blank fodder.

I don't see that. My understanding is that Pluto and the other Kuiper belt objects are largely snowballs that would become smaller iceballs or even comets nearer the sun. Haumea would presumably break up due to it's rotation rate if it melted.

The surface is infinitesimal, the main body of the Earth is rock allegedly solid most of the way down, but somehow flowing too.

Ice is a solid (okay, fine, most of the time), so if Pluto is mostly ice, then Pluto is mostly solid. Furthermore, any planet will become a liquid if you move it sufficiently close enough to its respective sun.

And now the core does matter, but only for Earth?

There's another issue that if we stop calling Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune planets (or plane-ettes, or wandering stars, or rudisplorks), we have another question to ask ourselves, "What are they?" I have lots of ideas, but I think the only category that is board appropriate is to call them Space Balls.

[Mechalich]

I was taught that Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars were "Inner Planets," and the others were "Outer Planets," with the distinction being that the asteroid belt separates the two. I think the intention was these terms applied just to our solar system, but thinking about it, it's not wrong to refer to planets outside our solar system as Outer Planets, either. I don't think they taught us any significance behind why we have the distinction, though, so it might have just been fill-in-the-blank fodder.

The reason for that distinction is found in older models of planetary formation. The 'inner planets' were those inside the snow line of planetary formation, which determines at what distance from the sun volatile compounds (like water) can condense into dust particles and thereby serve as material for planetary accretion. This means there's a lot more stuff to make planets out of in the accretion disk beyond the snow line, which was long assumed to determine why the planets inside the line are rocky and the ones beyond it are gas giants. It turns out that things are a lot more complicated than that, but that's the origin of the distinction.

There's another issue that if we stop calling Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune planets (or plane-ettes, or wandering stars, or rudisplorks), we have another question to ask ourselves, "What are they?" I have lots of ideas, but I think the only category that is board appropriate is to call them Space Balls.

Star systems consist of roughly four classes of object: A. objects large enough to ignite internal fusion; B. objects not large enough to ignite fusion but large enough to that their gravity pulls them into hydrostatic equilibrium (a roughly spherical shape); C. objects not large enough to reach hydrostatic equilibrium but with sufficient internal gravity to hold together; and D. tiny dust-like particles.

Class A is stars and brown dwarfs. Class D is dust grains. Class C is asteroid, comets, and the like. Planets are a sub-set of class B objects, which also includes a very large number of objects that are in hydrostatic equilibrium but are not occupying discrete orbits around the sun because they are either orbiting some other object (ie. moons) or because they are part of a mixed class of objects occupying a zone or belt of numerous objects (ie. Pluto, Eris, and other Kuiper Belt objects). It's worth noting that, at this time, it is not known where the boundary between B and C objects lies, because exactly how big any icy object needs to be to reach hydrostatic equilibrium is a subject of ongoing active research.

[halfeye]

Ice is a solid (okay, fine, most of the time), so if Pluto is mostly ice, then Pluto is mostly solid. Furthermore, any planet will become a liquid if you move it sufficiently close enough to its respective sun.

Yes, but the hot molten rock Jupiter mass things out there are not part of what I'm suggesting naming.

The Kuiper belt objects seem to be snow rather than ice, I don't know what happens with hydrogen snow but water snow is mostly much less dense than ice.

And now the core does matter, but only for Earth?

I'm talking about most of the Earth, all the hot high pressure rock between the crust and the core, which seems to be in a fluid-solid hybrid sort of state.

There's another issue that if we stop calling Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune planets (or plane-ettes, or wandering stars, or rudisplorks), we have another question to ask ourselves, "What are they?" I have lots of ideas, but I think the only category that is board appropriate is to call them Space Balls.

I find gas-giant-planet and rock-ball-planet to be overly long and cumbersome. "Planet" for the rock-balls and something else (hpefully equally concise) for the gas-giants would be an improvement in my view. I do hate it when people steal words which have a meaning already (like "colour" and "charm" in nuclear physics), so hopefully not one of those.

[Fat Rooster]

I really hate the whole human tendency to try to build one name for all purposes. A definition that is useful to somebody who is interested in system formation might be slightly different from one useful to somebody who wants to fly a spacecraft, which might be different to somebody who wants to talk about colonies or talk about ISRU. It is similar to how the astronomers definition of 'metals' is entirely appropriate to their use case, but useless to anybody on earth who is doing any sort of work with materials.

That's what I grew up being taught, but it's not what they are now!

Jupiter and Saturn as 'Gas Giants', Uranus and Neptune are now 'Ice Giants' whatever that means.

The distinction between gas giants and ice giants is extremely important if you want to talk about ISRU, because the ice giants contain far more 'metals' than the gas giants. Their cores are also much larger. To somebody doing a gravity assist the difference isn't important, but for many purposes it is.

They clearly have visible surfaces, just not visible surfaces of anything solid. A lot of people are fine with talking about surfaces of liquids, and some even go along with talking about surfaces of clouds.

Liquids clearly do have surfaces; surface tension is sort of what defines a liquid. A material scientist would say that fog does not have a surface. We just have to accept that the definition of 'surface' we are using when talking about large foggy objects like the giants or the sun, or even clouds, is not the same one a material scientist would use. Astronomers are usually talking about optical depth. 'correcting' them is not pedantry, it is failure to acknowledge or clarify the precise definition being used in the context. Correcting somebody who is talking about 'walking on the surface of the sun' should not be about telling them the sun has no 'surface' at all, it should be telling them that there are two definitions of 'surface' in play and they have switched from one to the other in a way that is not valid.

Yes, but the hot molten rock Jupiter mass things out there are not part of what I'm suggesting naming.

The Kuiper belt objects seem to be snow rather than ice, I don't know what happens with hydrogen snow but water snow is mostly much less dense than ice.



I'm talking about most of the Earth, all the hot high pressure rock between the crust and the core, which seems to be in a fluid-solid hybrid sort of state.



I find gas-giant-planet and rock-ball-planet to be overly long and cumbersome. "Planet" for the rock-balls and something else (hpefully equally concise) for the gas-giants would be an improvement in my view. I do hate it when people steal words which have a meaning already (like "colour" and "charm" in nuclear physics), so hopefully not one of those.

What's not concise about gas-giant? Why would we want a more concise word for rocky planets? Somebody interested in orbital mechanics doesn't care what they are made of so doesn't need something more specific that 'planet', while somebody looking for somewhere to land on wouldn't care that the object had cleared it's orbit or even if it was orbiting something else! Arguably we would want a word for anything with more than about 0.05G of gravity and a defined surface, that doesn't care about orbital mechanics (including moons like Titan), but currently the only people that should care are sci-fi authors.

Context specific definitions are sometimes frustrating, and in my experience are the source of the majority of misunderstandings (both externally in terms of arguments, but also internally in the form of people coming to some bizarre conclusions because some definition changes half way through their argument). They are the reality though, because the real word rarely fits neatly into a type system. We don't need new words, we need people to start listening in a way that tries to understand precisely what a speaker means when they use a word, rather than naively attempting to apply their own inflexible single definition.

Spoiler: Tangent

Show

People dunking on alkaline diets are the worst for this. The explanation for alkaline diets usually starts with an explanation of what they mean by alkaline in this context, yet the criticism almost always starts with 'that isn't what alkaline means'. That isn't an intelligent correction, it is a failure to listen and understand what is being said. It might be better called an alkalinogenic diet, or maybe even a reduced chloride diet, but they don't quite roll of the tongue in the same way, and the use of the word is not unreasonable.
I am not advocating alkaline diets. I have not seen enough evidence to conclude either way, but I don't think it is unreasonable to believe that changing the sodium to chloride ratio in our diet would have some health effects. I am just pointing out that it is often dismissed as pseudo-science because of listeners failing at language, and not because there is nothing there that could do anything or even the speaker being unclear.

As for why we might refer to Earth's moon as Luna in a conversation where the moons of other objects might crop up? Clarity. While in most contexts talking about the Moon will clearly be referring to Earth's moon, in this specific context it is not, so switching to calling it Luna communicates better.

[Peelee]

I While in most contexts talking about the Moon will clearly be referring to Earth's moon, in this specific context it is not

Isn't it? "The Moon", to the best of my knowledge, is always used the refer to the Earth's moon, where "the moon" can be used to refer to the moon of any other body. The Moon is typically the only one ever capitalized, and is about as confusing as someone reading about Earth and confusing it for dirt. The Earth is a planet and the earth is ground, and the latter isn't ever capitalized (unless you drop "the" and put it at the beginning of a sentence but that's on the same level as talking about polish vs Polish as thr beginning of a sentence).

Also, even without text and only in speech, context will virtually always immediately differentiate the Moon from other moons.

What, exactly, is different with this specific context that obfuscates? Let's quote the context but use the proper name instead:

I've long favored just throwing out the term "planet" entirely, an just referring to bodies as rockballs, gasballs, or iceballs. Earth, the Moon, and Ceres are all more like each other than any of them is like Jupiter or Neptune.

I don't think anyone would see that and be confused as to what "the Moon" refers to.

[Fat Rooster]

Isn't it? "The Moon", to the best of my knowledge, is always used the refer to the Earth's moon, where "the moon" can be used to refer to the moon of any other body. The Moon is typically the only one ever capitalized, and is about as confusing as someone reading about Earth and confusing it for dirt. The Earth is a planet and the earth is ground, and the latter isn't ever capitalized (unless you drop "the" and put it at the beginning of a sentence but that's on the same level as talking about polish vs Polish as thr beginning of a sentence).

Also, even without text and only in speech, context will virtually always immediately differentiate the Moon from other moons.

What, exactly, is different with this specific context that obfuscates? Let's quote the context but use the proper name instead:

I don't think anyone would see that and be confused as to what "the Moon" refers to.

I meant when talking about objects in the solar system. Maybe using the word 'specific' was a little confusing, as it is quite a broad context, so sorry for that. Consider the following examples:

"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. The moon is a great candidate for exploration and ...."
"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. The Moon is a great candidate for exploration and ...."
"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. Luna is a great candidate for exploration and ...."

Unlike with Earth and earth, it is quite easy to accidentally cause a reader to make a mistake because The Moon is a specific example of the common noun 'moon'. With care in both phrasing and parsing it is possible to be entirely unambiguous, or we could simply make everybody's lives easier and use an actual name for the Moon when other moons might also crop up as the specific moon being referred to. Context will almost always make it clear (eventually), but by relying on it we are making our lives ever so slightly harder unnecessarily.

Unless there is something else that could be being referred to by 'Luna' in scope, I don't see how using it could be less clear while it avoids some ambiguous corner cases. The improvement is usually marginal, but it definitely is an improvement. Having written a fair amount comparing various colony sites in the solar system (often comparisons of moons, including Luna), I can say from experience that avoiding the 'the moon' vs 'The Moon' pitfall is a headache. As you say, it is not strictly speaking ambiguous, but it is easy enough for a reader to make a mistake that it is worth avoiding.

[Chronos]

My reason for using the word "Luna" rather than "The Moon" was twofold: Part of it was for greater specificity, but part of it is that, despite being the origin of the name of the category, our Moon fits very poorly into the category of natural satellites of non-star celestial objects. Not only is Earth more like Luna than it is like Neptune, but Luna is more like Earth than it is like Ganymede, Titan, or Phobos.

And yes, I'm aware that "Luna" is just "Moon", in a different language. That's unfortunately unavoidable: There's no name for that body that's completely divorced, in all languages, from the category of other moons.

[Peelee]

I meant when talking about objects in the solar system. Maybe using the word 'specific' was a little confusing, as it is quite a broad context, so sorry for that. Consider the following examples:

"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. The moon is a great candidate for exploration and ...."
"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. The Moon is a great candidate for exploration and ...."
"I propose calling objects we can land on planumps. This would include the objects in direct orbit of the sun, as well as moons such as Io. Luna is a great candidate for exploration and ...."

Unlike with Earth and earth, it is quite easy to accidentally cause a reader to make a mistake because The Moon is a specific example of the common noun 'moon'. With care in both phrasing and parsing it is possible to be entirely unambiguous, or we could simply make everybody's lives easier and use an actual name for the Moon when other moons might also crop up as the specific moon being referred to. Context will almost always make it clear (eventually), but by relying on it we are making our lives ever so slightly harder unnecessarily.

Unless there is something else that could be being referred to by 'Luna' in scope, I don't see how using it could be less clear while it avoids some ambiguous corner cases. The improvement is usually marginal, but it definitely is an improvement. Having written a fair amount comparing various colony sites in the solar system (often comparisons of moons, including Luna), I can say from experience that avoiding the 'the moon' vs 'The Moon' pitfall is a headache. As you say, it is not strictly speaking ambiguous, but it is easy enough for a reader to make a mistake that it is worth avoiding.

So the example now given is a mistake of using the Moon's name as a descriptor, and the solution is to take a random language's word which means "moon" instead, and use that as the proper name for the Moon.

I really think this problem is uncommon enough that it likely doesn't warrant any solution other than simple editing, and even if a different solution is needed, sporadically resorting to other languages (which alternate language is used isn't even consistent, i should note) seems like it's needlessly confusing itself - is it named the Moon or Luna? Or maybe Selene? If absolutely necessary to use an alternate phrasing, wouldn't "Earth's moon" be exactly as accurate without any implications, even if unintended, that it has a different English/scientific name?

Ignoring that in all likelihood most uses of Luna are in the belief that it's the actual name of the Moon.

[Fat Rooster]

So the example now given is a mistake of using the Moon's name as a descriptor, and the solution is to take a random language's word which means "moon" instead, and use that as the proper name for the Moon.

I really think this problem is uncommon enough that it likely doesn't warrant any solution other than simple editing, and even if a different solution is needed, sporadically resorting to other languages (which alternate language is used isn't even consistent, i should note) seems like it's needlessly confusing itself - is it named the Moon or Luna? Or maybe Selene? If absolutely necessary to use an alternate phrasing, wouldn't "Earth's moon" be exactly as accurate without any implications, even if unintended, that it has a different English/scientific name?

Ignoring that in all likelihood most uses of Luna are in the belief that it's the actual name of the Moon.

When I am writing a piece that talks about lunar regolith, and the lunar day, I really don't see how a reader with more than one brain cell could be confused as to what Luna was referring to. It is certainly less confusing than The Moon (yes, the 'The' in The Moon should be capitalised. The IAU can control the names, but they do not control grammar, and the 'The' is part of the name). Luna isn't a random choice, or even Italian. It is going back to the Latin, consistent with the adjective. Completely with you that the other choices are wrong though. I agree that it might have been better if we had referred to the other moons as satellites originally too, but we didn't. Instead we got a 'Hoover' scenario, where a proper noun was genericised. Not ideal, but it happens. The question is what to do next with the language.

The Moon is not a person who could be offended by us calling it the wrong thing, or a company like Hoover that wants to protect their trademark. Context specific shorthand is normal use of language, and arbitrary relabelling for the purposes of clarity is also fine. For example; If you have a gaming group all called John then they will probably come up with context specific names for each other. Calling The Moon 'Luna' when there are other moons in scope is a shorthand that is quite tidy, in that it doesn't need explaining. The Moon would lose nothing rebranding to Luna, but would escape the genericization. Earth is unlikely to get another moon, so 'the moon' in terms of near earth contexts will still be unambiguous.

Earth's moon absolutely would be just fine in terms of clarity, but carries a possessive bias and is a little less concise. This is fine if you are writing science, but not so good for sci-fi or speculative futurism. Once there are 10,000 people living there, they are not going to be calling the rock they live on Earth's moon, or even The Moon (still implies subservience). It is impossible to know what they would end up calling home, but Luna at least is clear to people now and I would put money on it being the eventual outcome. I bring this up because you are wrong in saying that it is an uncommon problem not worth solving, at least for me. It is surprisingly annoying. If pushed I could probably even write a story about how insistence at calling it 'The Moon' over 'Luna' could cause significant political tensions between the two.

I know what the IAU decided 50 years ago, but I also believe it was moronic. I understand the value of consistent convention. I believe we get more back from bringing the proper noun into consistency with the adjective though, as the understanding is already there.

[Peelee]

When I am writing a piece that talks about lunar regolith, and the lunar day, I really don't see how a reader with more than one brain cell could be confused as to what Luna was referring to.

Neither do I? I never said it would be confusing as to what Luna referred to. I did say using Luna in English gives the impression that the Moon' s name is Luna (which, in English, is not the case). Was that what you were thinking of?

[Maat Mons]

… is it named the Moon or Luna? Or maybe Selene? …

Don’t be silly, calling Luna “Selene” would be like calling Neptune “Poseidon" or Mars "Aries.” Greek deity names are only for celestial bodies too unimportant to warrant a Roman deity name, but still important enough not to be relegated to being named after a Shakespeare character or something dumb like that.

… wouldn't "Earth's moon" be exactly as accurate … ?

I'll do you one better, we call it "The Planet's moon."

Ignoring that in all likelihood most uses of Luna are in the belief that it's the actual name of the Moon.

If we all use "Luna" as the name of Luna, than "Luna" becomes Luna's name. It's like how "literally" means figuratively. Check Merriam Webster if you don't believe me.

[Fat Rooster]

Neither do I? I never said it would be confusing as to what Luna referred to. I did say using Luna in English gives the impression that the Moon' s name is Luna (which, in English, is not the case). Was that what you were thinking of?

Ah, I see. Our disagreement is whether the IAU defined name matters. You seem to regard it as important that people have no confusion as to what the IAU says to call it in it's style guides, while I do not. When you said it might be confusing, you meant that people might get the idea that Luna was part of the IAU style guide, not confusion around the underlying object being referred to. The question then is why you think the IAU style is important?

Personally I think it is objectively bad, so am pretty quick to disregard it. It opts into a genericization with no good reason. When we say 'the moon', or 'the solar system', it is usually clear from context that we mean our one, even in IAU publications. It doesn't add anything to the language making that their name. Any time 'the moon' might be referring to a different moon you probably should be using 'Earth's moon' anyway and not just capitalising it! Names exist to disambiguate between objects that otherwise cannot be distinguished by type. The name 'Moon' singularly fails at this to the point we need to resort to another identifier.

I have little problem with calling it 'The Moon' (for now), unless you are going to insist that it must have only one name. Then it is a poor choice for any communication where you might be talking about the moon in the context of other moons. When talking about space, and near future colonisation in particular, that comes up. In this conversation about naming of astronomical objects, moons might be brought up. Diverging from the IAU in the name of increased clarity is appropriate here, despite the value of convention.

[Eldan]

My reason for using the word "Luna" rather than "The Moon" was twofold: Part of it was for greater specificity, but part of it is that, despite being the origin of the name of the category, our Moon fits very poorly into the category of natural satellites of non-star celestial objects. Not only is Earth more like Luna than it is like Neptune, but Luna is more like Earth than it is like Ganymede, Titan, or Phobos.

And yes, I'm aware that "Luna" is just "Moon", in a different language. That's unfortunately unavoidable: There's no name for that body that's completely divorced, in all languages, from the category of other moons.

However, every scientific body I'm aware of actually recommends using "The Moon" in English, not Luna.

[Peelee]

If we all use "Luna" as the name of Luna, than "Luna" becomes Luna's name. It's like how "literally" means figuratively. Check Merriam Webster if you don't believe me.

I'm fully aware of how language works, and have made an almost identical argument numerous times. The main difference when i argue it is that when i do it, i do it for words, which mean what people generally accept it to mean and is mutable over time, and which references (ie the dictionary) do not mandate what they mean but rather reflect the current usage (check Merriam-Webster if you don't believe me).

Conversely, this is not the case with names. The IAU is the recognized body that has established the guides on the names, as linked above. Sometimes this is trivial - eg, our moon being called "the Moon" and not "Luna". It's not uncommunicative, and i also have never argued against the use of Luna from a descriptive use, since it's obvious what it refers to. I have only ever argued against it from a prescriptive use, since regardless, that is not its actual name.

If the IAU decides to change the name of our moon (the Moon) to Luna, or change the name of our sun (the Sun) to Sol, or change the name of our solar system (the Solar System) to the Sol System, then I'll absolutely call them that, because they're the authority on the name. Just like how if i call you "Matty Moon" and it catches on and everyone starts calling you that and it's obvious who they mean, that's still not your username and never will be unless you change it. Because names don't follow the same linguistic rules as words. The historical figure was not named Julius Tzar or Julius Kaiser.

Now, you can make the argument that the IAU does not have the power to enforce this, which is true, and they themselves will readily admit. However, the IAU is still the arbiter of celestial body names, and has been for over 100 years. The dictionary, to use your example, is not the arbiter of what words mean. This isn't to say that the name cannot or will not change, it just means that Luna is objectively not the actual name of our moon.

It doesn't add anything to the language making that their name.

.....and? Why is this important? Do names necessitate adding something to the language? Caesar was both a person and then a title, and is now just a normal word. By your argument, nothing was added by taking the name and using it as a word for others that are not the exact original person. And further, since it has been used in a disassociated way from the original specific identity, should we change that name instead? Or do we just keep the name as the name and let the word evolve as language does, even if it creates overlap but still has each use nearly always be clear with context?

I have little problem with calling it 'The Moon' (for now), unless you are going to insist that it must have only one name.

It's like the Matty Moons example above. Nicknames are a thing. I not infrequently use nicknames i sporadically come up with to address other users, but i never present it as if it's their proper name. OP didn't intend to, as they stated, but there was no indication this was the case until they openly spoke up about it.

My arguments against Luna have never been to not call it that ever, but rather to not present it as if that is its name. Because, in English (and by extension in the scientific community), it's not. Poetically? Not a problem. Sci-fi that takes place in the future and they probably changed it? Sure, why not. Used specifically in a discussion about what celestial bodies are named, and not in the context of "we should change it to this" but rather in the context of it already being this? Yeah, this is unsurprisingly (to me, at least) the most i have ever written objecting to the specific use of it given the topic matter.

That being said, i also don't want to hijack this thread over the moon, so this is where I'll just have any further rebuttals stand unopposed.

[Metastachydium]

Damn. I arrive far too late to just go "proposal accepted; we shall continue not to call them plane-ettes"!

The historical figure was not named Julius Tzar or Julius Kaiser.

Well, that latter one is still far closer to the original than the "Djulious Seizer" thing you anglophones saddled the poor sod with. (Also, he was a Populistar. He'd like you to know that you can call him Gaius!)

[pendell]

My reason for using the word "Luna" rather than "The Moon" was twofold: Part of it was for greater specificity, but part of it is that, despite being the origin of the name of the category, our Moon fits very poorly into the category of natural satellites of non-star celestial objects. Not only is Earth more like Luna than it is like Neptune, but Luna is more like Earth than it is like Ganymede, Titan, or Phobos.

And yes, I'm aware that "Luna" is just "Moon", in a different language. That's unfortunately unavoidable: There's no name for that body that's completely divorced, in all languages, from the category of other moons.

FWIW, I also refer to our sun as Sol and the orbital body as Luna, because that is common usage in SF, even if the official names are still "The Sun" and "The Moon". Peelee evidently takes offense at referring to these bodies by other than their official names, but I have no problem with it. It is as a discussion we have had before, at length, but I see no need to go over it again. I think we're all agreed that the official names are "The Sun" and "The Moon" while other names are common -- and commonly understood -- in other contexts.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[DavidSh]

Anyway, in Italian it would be "la luna", not just "Luna", wouldn't it?

But we can agree that Barsoom, the World, Cytherea, and Mercury are more like each other than any is like Jove.

(employing the wooukhee strategy here)

[Lord Torath]

Damn. I arrive far too late to just go "proposal accepted; we shall continue not to call them plane-ettes"!

I quite agree. I shall continue calling them planets or exo-planets, and never plane-ettes. I mean, it's not like they're plane-shaped, anyway. Although plane-ette is a decent term for a pocket plane.