SpaceShipOne News Coverage just a little rough on the edges

Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote:

The biggest insult to the world of astromomy has to be the popular Leo
Gorceyesqe mispronunciation of "Uranus," uttered with two syllables instead
of three. Its about time that school teachers learn their charges that
Uranus is a Greek god, not an anatomical exit.

I was raised to pronounce it as Yr-nus, and it wasn't until I was in my
mid-teens that I heard an American pronounce it in the way in question
(which I was slightly disturbed at).

There's not much that can be done about it though - it's an integral
part of the juvenile-s******ing element of language these days...

You will note Sir Cedric Hardwicke got it wrong doing the lead-in of "The
War of the Worlds," an otherwise scientifically perfect sci-fi movie.

Aargh.

How did it get by George Pal who had a superior European education
and obviously had to know better.

Perhaps because Pal didn't direct the film?


David
--
per aspera ad astra

David Sander wrote:

Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote:

The biggest insult to the world of astromomy has to be the popular Leo
Gorceyesqe mispronunciation of "Uranus," uttered with two syllables instead
of three. Its about time that school teachers learn their charges that
Uranus is a Greek god, not an anatomical exit.

I was raised to pronounce it as Yr-nus, and it wasn't until I was in my
mid-teens that I heard an American pronounce it in the way in question
(which I was slightly disturbed at).

There's not much that can be done about it though - it's an integral
part of the juvenile-s******ing element of language these days...

Language naturally shifts to fill in available holes and reduce
ambiguities perceived as important to reduce. How can this be a bad
thing with your-anus?



--
"And he did bring them. It took a number of years, but one by one he
brought them here. Except for his father, that old man died where he was
born." -+ "Elia Kazan, "America, America"

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:19:30 GMT, David Sander
wrote:

How did it get by George Pal who had a superior European education
and obviously had to know better.

Perhaps because Pal didn't direct the film?

....No, that was Bun Haskin, who also directed the first "Star Trek"
pilot. Pal, however, did the SFX, and played a cameo role as a bum.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

David Sander wrote:
[..]
The biggest insult to the world of astromomy has to be the popular Leo
Gorceyesqe mispronunciation of "Uranus," uttered with two syllables instead
of three. Its about time that school teachers learn their charges that
Uranus is a Greek god, not an anatomical exit.

I was raised to pronounce it as Yr-nus, and it wasn't until I was in my
mid-teens that I heard an American pronounce it in the way in question
(which I was slightly disturbed at).

Well, the pseudo-scatalogical pronounciation is 3 syllables, also, so
I'm left wondering how the 2 syllable version sounds....

And chances are pretty good that nobody alive today pronounces it in
the way accepted in the Plaka back in 4 BC

David Sander wrote in message ...
Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote:

The biggest insult to the world of astromomy

[arrggh -- hit "send" too soon. This continues Message-ID:
]

Merriam-Webster gives the transliteration of the classical Greek as
"Ouranos", the modern spelling includes the tweeks done by the Latins.


There's not much that can be done about it though - it's an integral
part of the juvenile-s******ing element of language these days...

Yeah, but the pronounciation probably *originated* in misunderstanding
the Greek rules of pronounciation as practiced by upper class
Europeans 19-23 centuries later.

Amercian university included a wider variety of social classes
relatively early in the rise of the middle class, and were probably
quicker to drop classical languages from the course requirements, than
European universities.

/dps