"We're whalers on the moon..."

[mrv3000]

I'm not sure, but wiki might be the greatest invention known to man. Who cares if it's not 100% accurate? It's the new Truth.

So I've been wondering - "Lieutenant." Why do we in the US say "lootenant" while in the UK they say "leftenant?" And wiki told me. Old spellings and such, and we *used* to say "leftenant" in the US, but somewhere in the 1800s we started saying it the other way. Probably just to be pissy.

Wiki also reminded me that our moon has no formal name other than The Moon. A fact which, if you've known me for a while, disturbs me greatly. It ranks right up there with SG-1 puppets, quite frankly.

Ah, I remember the first time ranting about the moon's lack of name as if it were yesterday - sitting with a friend in the bleachers at high school, watching football practice. Friend told me to shut up and watch the boys. Mwah.

Comments

[ramdonomo.livejournal.com]

SG-1 puppets bothers you greatly?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

YES. They're creepy and evil.

[ramdonomo.livejournal.com]

Liiiiiiiiiike, the ones in 200?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Yes! *hides*

[ramdonomo.livejournal.com]

So... the part where they walked through the gate and came out the other side and fell over...?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Was the happy end to a frightening sketch...

[ramdonomo.livejournal.com]

AH. Yes. See, me too.

[ramdonomo.livejournal.com]

Tell me about The Moon?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

The moon has no name, which is very, very lame. All the other planets' moons have names, but not ours. Due to the lame.

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

Ooh! We say Lieutenant in Canada, too! *giggle*

Canadian English is the best. It's like some sort of hybrid child of American and UK English.

I'm not sure, but wiki might be the greatest invention known to man. Who cares if it's not 100% accurate? It's the new Truth.

I agree. *bows down to The Wiki*

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Canadian English is the best. It's like some sort of hybrid child of American and UK English.

Totally! I was watching Slings & Arrows last night - love all the little differences in language.

I agree. *bows down to The Wiki*

*constructs wiki shrine*

[scifijunkie.livejournal.com]

Well, if you want to get technical, the Sun doesn't have a name either. Sol is merely Latin for 'sun'. On the other hand, if they use the Latin word for 'sun' as the name of the Sun, you could do the same for the moon: "Luna".

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

ACK! You're right! The Earth totally got the short end of the universe stick!

[scifijunkie.livejournal.com]

IT TOTALLY DID. Except that there are entire PLANETS out there that don't have names, just numbers.

But alas, poor Moon. Poor Sun. No names for you.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Poor planets with no names!! :(

[ex-spockette108.livejournal.com]

Oh god, the Moon DOESN'T have a name. *flails* This is going to disturb me all night now. Hmph.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It DOESN'T! And you should be disturbed!

[joyfulfeather.livejournal.com]

I think you should take the initiative and come up with a name for the moon! Get people to sign a petition and then send it to... whoever decides that sort of thing. Probably the same people who demoted Pluto, now that I think about it, so maybe you won't have much luck.

But if you are somehow successful, you can then do the same for the sun.

And then the world solar system will be a better place.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Hmm. Perhaps...Cajones. As my mind instantly went off into juvenile jokes involving aliens visiting Earth only to find one Cajones, and, um, I'm sorry. I deeply apologize for the really bad jokes in my mind. Not even all that dirty, just bad.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

Our planet doesn't have a name other than "Earth". And our sun is just called "sun".

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

But Earth is the name, no? It's not like we're calling it The Planet. But I am now cranky about the sun as well.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I wonder sometimes if, when we meet people from other planets, if their word for the name of their planet will also mean "dirt". Because in Star Trek you have Vulcan and Vulcans, Barjor and Bajorans etc. (er...except the Klingons), but it's never really addressed and inquiring minds want to know!

[joyfulfeather.livejournal.com]

That bothers me, too, how our word for our planet means "dirt." It seems disrespectful, almost, though I guess it is descriptive...

Vulcan and Vulcans, Barjor and Bajorans etc.

You know, by that naming convention, either we should be called "Earthans" or our planet should be "Human" or "Hume" or something. Actually, I kinda like that. Hume.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that too, but I was getting off topic, so I just stopped talking.

[fiona-conn.livejournal.com]

*Chuckles* A lot of SF refers to us as Terrans, oddly enough. It means "land".

If you want to be technical about it, according to the online etymology dictionary: O.E. eorðe "ground, soil, dry land," also used (along with middangeard) for "the (material) world" (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld), from P.Gmc. *ertho (cf. O.N. jörð, M.Du. eerde, O.H.G. erda, Goth. airþa), from PIE base *er-. The earth considered as a planet was so called from c.1400. Earthy in the fig. sense of "coarse, unrefined" is from 1594. Earthworm first attested 1591. Earthwork is from 1633. Earthlight apparently coined 1833 by British astronomer John Herschel.

For more information: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=451

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

You never know. Could be!

[fiona-conn.livejournal.com]

We actually have two moons. The other's an asteroid named Cruithne, which, if memory serves, completes one rotation around the earth once every 700-or-so years.

=D

Watch QI, if you get a chance. It's FULL of random little facts.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Hooray! A moon thing with a name!!

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I wasn't really aware it was pronounced leftenant over here? *ponders*

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*pats*

[misssimm.livejournal.com]

American TV has stopped me from being able to speak my own language!

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahahaha! And I've been watching quite a bit of UK TV lately - I said something the other day. Can't remember what, but it was completely dorky.

[makesometime.livejournal.com]

Now you see why I was spazzing out - privately possibly, I'm not sure I posted it on LJ - about them calling the star in 42 'The Sun' when they would have called it by its NAME. Which wasn't Sun, as far as I remember.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Huh. That's odd.

[vegmb.livejournal.com]

Our moon does have a name. It is Friend Moon, so named by my little brother when he was about 3 and would sit and talk to it whenever he saw it.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

That's adorable. :)

[vegmb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but he probably wouldn't like me share those stories...oh well, older sister privilege.

[angst-angel.livejournal.com]

Yes, wiki is awesome for providing that kind of information on demand! As I read your musings on "lieutenant," I was itching to go to wiki and find out WHY, so I'm glad that you provided the answer as well. I once learned (on wiki) that milk has pus in it. Ew.

Also, SG-1 puppets really are kind of disturbing. *hides eyes*

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

EWW. DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THAT.

[angst-angel.livejournal.com]

This is why I prefer soy milk, heh. Too much information can be a bad thing!!

[hyari.livejournal.com]

What? I thought the moon was an elaborate US gov't conspiracy carefully staged by men, powerful men without conscience, as a hoax against the American people? So things that do not exist obviously do not need names.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

SHHHHHHHHH. You're not supposed to say that out loud. I'm sure that's part of the LJ TOS banning rules.