Saturday 8 June 2013

What sort of arsehole decided to call a planet "Uranus"?

8 comments:

Bob E said...

Wasn't that one of Slartibartfast's "in-jokes" - rumour is he didn't like the clients very much.

Bayard said...

Isn't it pronounced "you're in us"

Graeme said...

at the risk of being a pendant, I point out that it is spelt Uranus rather than Yuranus.

Sackerson said...

Didn't think you were one for vulgar language until very recently, Mark.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BE, I doubt I'm the first to make the joke.

B, timid people pronounce it like that, yes.

G, fair enough.

S, I love swearing! It's big and it's clever!

Lysistrata said...

Yes yes, very amusing. (Still makes me smile a bit...)

Uranus was named after a god (y'know, like Mars, Venus, Jupiter).

He's the old Greek god 'Ouranos', pronounced oo-ran-OSS. Try telling a Greek they're a wuss for pronouncing it 'Youranus'.

He was the god of the Sky and married to and/or the son of Gaia, goddess of the Earth. Together they produced the Titans, the ones the Olympian gods overthrew.

I'll get my coat...

Lysistrata said...

edit: not. NOT pronouncing it etc...

Mark Wadsworth said...

L according to Wiki, t'other planets were named after Roman gods but after much debate to and fro in the late 18th century, they decided to call the new discovery "Uranus", despite English astronomers had quite a say in this. So epic fail.

S, is it? Or that the Saturnese people's own name for it? For example, I doubt whether extra terrestrials call our planet "Earth". "Mainly water" is the obvious choice.