Quote:
Originally Posted by grant hutchison
Perhaps you shouldn't have launched with a phrase like "this abandonment of the Latin naming convention is kind of sickening", then. "Abandonment" and "sickening" are emotive words, pushing a particular view. Folks tend to push back under these circumstances, if so inclined.
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Yes, I definitely agree here. I was kind of "attracted" to this thread by that initial post. And I must say, however, that the discussion has been interesting. I basically agree with Grant (I think...) that if we are going to have the IAU make decisions on naming bodies, it should do so in a way that incorporates the sort of plurarity of human cultures. It shouldn't be a culturally biased choice.
Just as an aside, dwnielsen has repeatedly brought up the idea of sound symbolism, which is something that I am very interested in. I'm not sure how it relates to the naming of planets, however. The sound of a bell is similar in many languages because, well, bells sound a certain way. Many languages have a word for "cut" that has the /k/ sound, which is natural because cutting actually seems to sound that way to the human ear. But I can't imagine how Jupiter or Saturn might sound. They're just lights in the sky.