Ok so our home PLANET is called Earth, our GALAXY the Milky Way. Then what do we call our SOLAR SYSTEM? It can't simply remain the 'Solar System' as there are gazillions of them out there -- even as of yet undiscovered they may be

Many many many years from now when we populate other solar systems, would they still refer to the original as the Solar System? I think not

Ok i just found 2 other possibilities...

One is that our solar system is called 'Sol'. But Iv also head that's what we call our sun?

The other: Monmatia (according to the The Urantia book)

Solar Systems are usually named after the name of the star, so ours will be called the Sol System.

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I had never heard of the Urantia book until now, and I would have much preferred if that had stayed thus.
I don't think taking the name of our solar system from a book which says that the Earth was 2.5 biilion years ago only a tenth of its current size is a good idea...

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Luna works for me.

Sol is Roman god of the Sun, its also Roman for Helios the Greek god of the sun.
Sol=Sun

Same for me. Luna is Latin for Selene the Greek/Roman goddess of the moon.
Selene in Greek means moon.

Agreed!

I got a long list of things that don't work for me. Nasal and Ear hair chief among them. It quite possibly could be the only non-aethestic thought in my belief system. Hair in your ears or nose that constantly pokes out after you've reached a certain age in life might possibly be proof that there is a creator, and he's a real jerk!
But all in all, the feelings I have on the subject matter not, thats the way it is. We live on the third planet in the Sol system. Our moon is called THE moon or Luna for the simple reason that we only have one. If we had been fortunate to have two moons, we'd probably have a more distinctive name for each defining them away from what they are.

Makes you wonder though, when we run into a different race of critters, will they name their system after their sun? The most prominent sun or the biggest, or after ear hair which although a real pain seems to be a growing constant in my personal universe.

We return you now to sanity...

You might be gaining hair in odd places, but im rapidly loosing them where it matters!

Does anyone use those in casual conversation? "Luna is full tonight." "Did you see Selene last night? She was a thin crescent close to Venus." "What's Luna's phase on Halloween?"
If you do that....blanks stares will result.

Ah! The semantical quagmire. "Solar System" is the name of our stellar system. Stellar system being the generic term. There are no other Solar systems; those are stellar systems. Specific names might be siriusian, Miran, betelgeussian...etc.

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hehe there we go

Good lad!
ta

Astronomy/space writer tend to use the term "solar system" to describe these systems of extrasolar planets. But most of the discovering astronomers (Marcy, Butler, others) use "planetary systems," not solar or stellar. Occasionally I'll see one using solar system, but usually it's planetary. See these two articles for examples. I'm sure other writers do it differently, too.

It's sort of like the moon/satellite debate. Some people insist that our chunk o' cheese in the sky is the only one that should rightly be called a moon, everything else around other planets are merely natural satellites and don't deserve the name moon.

It's a shame we don't personify our celestial bodies anymore. I like the idea of the big guy Helios riding his chariot across the sky, and lovely Selene singing to Endymion as he lies in eternal sleep. Something rather impersonal and unpleasant happened to language when we added the definite article, when we gave ourselves THE Sun, THE Moon, and THE Earth; it makes them sound... dead. I have to say though, that there seems to be something of a double standard at work here; we never say "the Mars," or "the Jupiter," after all.

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we can call our solar system - "The Living Spot" since earth is a planet in our solar system which supports life.Earth can be considered superior and we can name the solar system after it - "Eartho Solar System"

Scientists are there to give more better names but i thought of this at the moment.

http://www.space.invisionplus.net

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"Silence--The Moon sleeps with Endymion/And would not be waked." (I may have that quote wrong, but I'm almost certain it's from The Merchant of Venice.)

I tend to capitalize Moon and Earth and sometimes even Sun. After all, they are places; those are their names. That makes them proper nouns. I think that helps remind me that they are still the places that have held such wonder for humanity for so long.

Then again, I'm an English major, so I may just be pedantic.

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"You can't erase icing."

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It took me awhile to get used to that--but I like it fine now. Its an aquired taste. If we name star systems after the planet that has life and has staked a claim in its home system--then we would call our home...

The Terran System.

I was always of the opinion that the name of our star was Sol, therefore the name of our "planetary system" would be Solar System.

emphasis mine...

That would be me. I imagine as long as the other planets satellites are called moons (lower case "m"), and the Earth's satellite is called Moon, (uppercase "M")...well that would be alright...but that's as far as I'll "go".

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I like that. Our star is Sol, and so we are in the Solar system. Makes sense, and doesn't require us to shift our habits radically.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

The language, perhaps...

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Why not? We only have one of each.

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Well, as I mentioned above, we also only have one Jupiter and one Mars, yet that doesn't stop us referring to them without "the"

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Yes but Jupiter and Mars are the names of Planets. The Sun and The moon are singulars of things, not their names. When was the last time you heard someone say 'Moon was up tonight.'? Never, not in English anyways. They say 'The Moon was up tonight.' If they wanted to say it the other way they'd have to say 'Luna was up tonight' but that'd give you some blank stares.

Argue if you'd like, but I'm right and you won't change my mind one itty bitty bit.

Just sitting here in my rightness. Yup, that's me, Mr. Correct. Johnny Righto.

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'Sun' and 'Moon' are names (proper nouns), but they are also common nouns. As common nouns, there are many "suns" and many "moons" in the galaxy, so when we talk about one of them in particular we say "the sun", "the moon" -- that one, over there.
This is nothing extraordinary, in language. There are also several queens in Europe, but when there's no danger of confusion British people just say "the Queen", meaning theirs.

Sometimes.
"The planet", meaning our own.

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But "planet" isn't capatalized. That could just as easliy be

Planet isn't a proper noun. It's only capatalized at the beginning of the sentence, not when it's referring to Earth.