Sometimes name changes just bug us.
Scientists have been debating for a while what is the definition of a
planet and this week a bunch at a scientist club have voted that
Pluto is not a planet. I don't mind and my grandkids are excited.
The only problem is that sometimes scientists think that the
scientific jargon meaning of a word is the only meaning. For
example, some people call all insects bugs and some entomologists say
bug applies only to Hemiptera.
When I was a small boy I read SF and books about astronomy. I knew
from those books that the names of our sun, planet and moon were Sol,
Terra and Luna respectively. Then at the start of the space race
NASA started talking about planet Earth. The press followed. In a
short time most people thought of the name of the planet as Earth.
Now, that bugged this boy. I wanted to be excited about astronauts
and rockets and such, but somehow that turned it into a PR game.
I wonder if some mathematicians or word lovers were bugged when IBM
changed the name of sexadecimal to hexadecimal. DEC used octal,
perhaps to avoid an offensive chimeric word with magic spell
connotations, being based in Massachusetts and all that.
Sometime late last century I vaguely noticed that there weren't any
Datsuns around.
Dealing with name changes is part of how we cope, I guess.
Dar Scott
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