[meteorite-list] MARTIAN MOON NAMES... AGAIN

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 18:38:30 -0500
Message-ID: <013901c8f9af$dd4181f0$f34ce146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Darren, John, Larry, List

This is so typical. I'm here to completely reverse my position
on the English meaning of the names of the Martian moons
that I posted yesterday. The IAU / USGS website with them:
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/append7.html
is probably correct and the best resolution of the question.

I've continued to research the question. I have discovered that
I was wrong about some things (no big surprise there). I have
the habit of shooting off my mouth about what I think I "know"
and discovering it to be mistaken. I was "sure" Iliad xv, 119
had Phobos, Deimos in that order, and... yes, wrong again.

The Iliad, Chap 15, lines 113-120,
transliterated into Romanic characters:

h?s ephat', autar Ar?s thaler? pepl?geto m?r?
chersi katapr?ness', olophuromenos d' epos ?uda:
m? nun moi nemes?set' Olumpia d?mat' echontes 115
tisasthai phonon huios iont' epi n?as Achai?n,
ei per moi kai moira Dios pl?genti keraun?i
keisthai homou nekuessi meth' haimati kai koni?isin.
h?s phato, kai rh' hippous keleto Deimon te Phobon te
zeugnumen, autos d' ente' eduseto pamphano?nta. 120

If the characters don't come up right in the email,
just go to:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0133&layout=&loc=15.119
You can switch the display to the Greek characters
if you want to.

I was dead wrong. Homer gives Deimos, Phobos in that
order, which Bryant translated as Fear, Flight, in that
order, which Hall chose, in that order, to be the English
names of Deimus, Phobus, which he discovered, in that
order (despite the greater magnitude of Phobos).

SO, if the deciding criterion is the nominative intent of
the discoverer Hall, the English names on the IAU / USGS
website are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!

The question is not a definitive source, but a definitive or
deciding criterion. There are some choices:

1. The intent of the discoverer and the exercise of the
"naming right" in a case of a name of pre-IAU origin and
undisputed at the time. In this case, it would be what is
currently on the webpage.

2. The linguistic heritage of a loan-word or root in any
given language. There's no doubt English has accepted
the Greek "phobos" as a root for Fear, at this point in time.
This is unlikely to change, as we're likely to continue to
have phobias! On the other hand, "deimos" has not been
borrowed into English, so there is no obvious choice for it.
     The English phobia postdates Hall's naming. We didn't
have phobias until the psychiatric revolution of the early
twentieth century. If you didn't like standing on the edge
of a cliff or being locked in a closet, you were just a
scaredy-cat, not phobic. You were teased, not drugged,
enrolled in a support group, made "special."

3. Accepted Usage is another possible criterion. But we
see that the usage of translators of Ancient Greek is all
over the map, all of the time. But there's also the
"Accepted Professional Usage" of astronomers who,
for almost a century have been writing textbooks, the
vast majority of which have translated Phobos as
Fear and Deimos as something else! Panic, Terror,
Dread, Flight, Rout... you name it, and occasionally
re-naming Phobos, too. Doesn't seem that any of these
astronomers ever objected to what the others were
doing in the name-translation game, either. It was
essentially a free-for-all.
    The problem is that there's nothing settled here; in
both cases, the name translations can vary at will and
at any time. Nomenclature is not supposed to work
that way.

The three criteria all have advantages and disadvantages.
No. 2 is bad because it's indecisive about Deimos, so it
doesn't apply to the whole case. No. 3 is bad because
it is subject to change. In the case of adopting current
Ancient Greek-to-English translation preferences, it will
change constantly, or at least a three times a century.
In the case of "professional" usage, it is clear about
Phobos and vague about Deimos, just like No. 2, so
it settles nothing. It was a partial free-for-all, and that
is problem. Astronomers didn't settle it. They had
their chance and didn't think it was important enough
to pin it down.

That leaves No. 1, which has a clear-cut rationale, based
on a clear-cut principle, and produces a result that is fixed.
If it is the criterion that applies, the matter of the meaning
of the names in English is done, over, permanent, will never
change, move along, there's nothing to see here...

So, I've done a complete flip-flop. They should leave the
website the way it is. They've done the right thing. If a man
persist in error long enough, he will find the truth of it.
(I'm sure somebody said that, and if not, someone should
have.)

And... that is what the IAU Nomenclature is all about, isn't it?
Settle the matter. Fix the name permanently. Stop quibbling.
Move on. The only disadvantage of No. 1 is that they will get
these quibbling emails afterwards... for years.

Now, I'm telling everybody that I told that I thought the names
were wrong that the names are probably the best choice and
why, eating many small dishes of crow along the way...

Frankly, I don't know why they don't just compose a brief,
concise paragraph that says: "The names of the moons
of Mars and the English translations of those names are
those specifically proposed by their discoverer, Asaph
Hall (1878), and as such, they have been accepted and
retained under the current IAU Nomenclature."

It's true to the extent that Hall does not stop in the
announcement with accepting the two Greek names
sent him by Mr. Madan of Eton but goes on to provide
an English translation of them (Bryant's) in what is
otherwise a very brief announcement. There were a
dozen or more extent English translations of the Iliad
from which he could have quoted, all different; he
choose THOSE translations of Phobos and Deimos.

Yes, I'm a quibbler, but I've managed to talk my way
through my problem in therapy. Now that I'm on Phobos,
I can move on to pondering the meaning of Clustril,
Drunlo, Flimnap, Limtoc, Reldresal, and Skyresh...
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/Phobos_comp.pdf

Hobbits on the Martian moons?



Sterling K. Webb
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Received on Fri 08 Aug 2008 07:38:30 PM PDT