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Science Forum Index » Astro - Amateur Forum » It ain't Smokey "the" Bear and it ain't "the" Earth!!
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| Martin R. Howell |
 Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:51 pm |
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What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing? |
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| Martin R. Howell |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:34 pm |
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On Apr 20, 9:22 pm, Sam Wormley <sworml...@mchsi.com> wrote:
Quote: Martin R. Howell wrote:
What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
You know what a bucket is.... bucket...
Holes are not good for "the" bucket.
You swim in a river.... river...
Toxic Waste Sludge is not good for "the" river.
Lots of CO2 is not particularly good for "the" Earth's
climate as we know it.
Hmm, so that comet of a few years ago which smashed into the Jupiter
wasn't very nice? <g> |
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| TBerk |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 8:01 pm |
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On Apr 20, 9:32 pm, Chris L Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
Quote: In California you drive to work on "the" 405 (even though you don't live
on "the" Elm Street); here in Colorado if I say I'll drive "the" 25,
people say I'm from California.
Southern California.
People up (the) Bay Area way don't say 'I saw a crash on THE 101",
they use the numbers like they should be used: The Highway is called
Highway 101.
Its not Highway THE 101.
Those in SoCal who use 'the' in front of the freeway's name sound like
corrupted Easterners who migrated West.
Lastley:
Alien: Where do you live?
Human: I live on THE Earth.
Human II: I live on Earth.
Both are correct.
TBerk
don't forget, Brits go to 'Hospital' and 'University'. No _the_ about
it... |
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| Sam Wormley |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:22 pm |
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Martin R. Howell wrote:
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
You know what a bucket is.... bucket...
Holes are not good for "the" bucket.
You swim in a river.... river...
Toxic Waste Sludge is not good for "the" river.
Lots of CO2 is not particularly good for "the" Earth's
climate as we know it. |
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| Chris L Peterson |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:32 pm |
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On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:51:37 -0700 (PDT), "Martin R. Howell"
<martinhowell@bluebottle.com> wrote:
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
If you really are getting worked up over this, relax <g>.
There are a lot of proper nouns that get used optionally with "the", and
it varies with language and dialect as well (in German, it's common to
put "the" in front of people's names: it's the Hans's birthday today).
In California you drive to work on "the" 405 (even though you don't live
on "the" Elm Street); here in Colorado if I say I'll drive "the" 25,
people say I'm from California.
Our planet is called Earth. We live on "the" Earth. Slightly different
forms of usage, that's all.
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:37 am |
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On 2008-04-21, Martin R. Howell <martinhowell@bluebottle.com> wrote:
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
The Earth is la Tierra or der Erde or whatever language you have.
Bud |
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| David Weinshenker |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:54 am |
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Chris L Peterson wrote:
Quote: On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:51:37 -0700 (PDT), "Martin R. Howell"
martinhowell@bluebottle.com> wrote:
What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
If you really are getting worked up over this, relax <g>.
There are a lot of proper nouns that get used optionally with "the", and
it varies with language and dialect as well (in German, it's common to
put "the" in front of people's names: it's the Hans's birthday today).
In California you drive to work on "the" 405 (even though you don't live
on "the" Elm Street); here in Colorado if I say I'll drive "the" 25,
people say I'm from California.
In Northern California, if you say that you
drive on "the 101", people will think you're
from Southern California.
-dave w |
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| Edward Erbeck |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:21 am |
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Quote: "David Weinshenker" wrote:
In Northern California, if you say that you
drive on "the 101", people will think you're
from Southern California.
Yep. 'Cause the entire S.F. Peninsula calls their section of 101 "The
Bay Shore Freeway".
Crazy Ed |
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| Chris L Peterson |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:38 am |
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On Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:01:07 -0700 (PDT), TBerk <bayareaberk@yahoo.com>
wrote:
Quote: People up (the) Bay Area way don't say 'I saw a crash on THE 101",
they use the numbers like they should be used: The Highway is called
Highway 101.
The point is, that's NOT how it "should" be used. Either is fine. It's
just convention, that varies with culture (even very subtle cultural
differences, in this case). When saying "the 101" in reference to a
highway, "101" isn't really a number, it's a proper noun.
Quote: Its not Highway THE 101.
It's not that in Southern California, either, or anywhere else I'm
familiar with.
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com |
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| David Weinshenker |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 9:20 am |
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Edward Erbeck wrote:
Quote: "David Weinshenker" wrote:
In Northern California, if you say that you
drive on "the 101", people will think you're
from Southern California.
Yep. 'Cause the entire S.F. Peninsula calls their section of 101 "The
Bay Shore Freeway".
Only on the maps: nobody around here uses that name in practice.
-dave w |
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| John Nichols |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:11 pm |
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"Martin R. Howell" <martinhowell@bluebottle.com> wrote in message
news:01c468bd-78a2-46e3-9808-69e61688894e@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
Yes. |
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| Brian Tung |
| Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:08 am |
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David Weinshenker wrote:
Quote: Yep. 'Cause the entire S.F. Peninsula calls their section of 101 "The
Bay Shore Freeway".
Only on the maps: nobody around here uses that name in practice.
I never called it the Bayshore Freeway, but I did call 17 the Nimitz on
occasion. (Or is it 880?)
Funny thing is, I now live in Southern California, and I say "the 10"
and "the 405," but when I go back up to the Bay Area, I still say just
"101" and "85," not "the 101" and "the 85." Even more weirdly, I say
"the 101" down here. Evidently, it's very context-sensitive for me.
--
Brian Tung <brian@aero.org>
NOTE: Below addresses changing soon...
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html |
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| Quadibloc |
| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:12 pm |
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On Apr 20, 9:51 pm, "Martin R. Howell" <martinhow...@bluebottle.com>
wrote:
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth." So, when I hear something is
good for "the" Earth, I am given to wonder what might be good for
"the" Jupiter, or "the" Venus. Am I getting all worked up over
nothing?
You live on a world.
That world is the only world that any human being could live on for
all but a vanishingly small fraction of human history.
This world is divided into parts - the oceans, the land, and the
atmosphere. The only oceans, land, or atmosphere that people used to
know even existed.
There were planets - stars in the sky that didn't stay put like the
rest, but which wandered around the Zodiac. They were points of light
in the sky, and that's all anyone knew about them.
The oceans of our world, the land, and the air made up the only world
we knew. Since we live on the land, and the soil beneath our feet is
where we grow the food we eat, just as we speak of "a day" for a
period of 24 hours that includes both day and night (a nyctemeron to
the Greeks) we called our world the Earth. The land, the only land
there is to stand on and live on.
We gave those little points of light in the sky names too. We named
them after gods - whether Marduk and Nergal, or Jupiter and Mars.
There were several of them, though, and while each one was special in
its own way, they weren't unique. But there was only one Sun, and one
Moon, the Sun and the Moon.
The Sun and the Moon, seen in the sky of the Earth.
If the English language had come into existence *after* we were a
society with a clear concept that the planets are worlds like our own,
they have natural satellites like ours, and the other stars in the
night sky are suns as well, then we wouldn't be having this
discussion, since then our planet would only be a world among many
others.
John Savard |
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| Quadibloc |
| Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:39 am |
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On Apr 24, 7:09 am, Bert Hyman <b...@iphouse.com> wrote:
Quote: Innews:01c468bd-78a2-46e3-9808-69e61688894e@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com
"Martin R. Howell" <martinhow...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth."
I recall a SciFi story from my youth which included a comment (vaguely
recalled) from some alien:
"A strange people; they call their planet Dirt."
I vaguely recall it too; at least the author didn't succump to ghe
temptation to exploit the matter further by having the other alien
look up from his measurements of the Earth's atmospheric composition
to reply,
"Yes, and they treat it like that, too."
John Savard |
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| Bert Hyman |
| Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:09 am |
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In
news:01c468bd-78a2-46e3-9808-69e61688894e@y18g2000pre.googlegroups.com
"Martin R. Howell" <martinhowell@bluebottle.com> wrote:
Quote: What do you people think of this little point? I always thought that
our planet is named simply, "Earth."
I recall a SciFi story from my youth which included a comment (vaguely
recalled) from some alien:
"A strange people; they call their planet Dirt."
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com |
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