this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] ook@discuss.tchncs.de 120 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Just read one of Ursula Le Guin's books where humans sent off some unwanted people, no scientists, to another planet and they brought up how hundreds of years into living there, they still give arbitrary names to things. E.g. naming an animal Heron because it kind of resembles one, but this is an alien world, so it is really not.

Anyways, at one point one of the characters asks why people still use the name Victoria for the planet, as this was named by Earth people. And then suggested to just call the planet Mud, since they got so much of it. Was half a joke but later in the book some people do use Mud as a name for it.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 48 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Yesss, I just Le Guin pilled someone last week. Fingers crossed they read it. They asked me for a general book list and chose one of hers from it.

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Same! I snuck up behind and choke-holded them with Wizard until they passed out from Ged overdose, and then I crammed Atuan into each and every orifice before I left them for dead.

I can't wait to have a new book bestie!

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

While I recognize the humor, I wish I had a book bestie.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

i recently read through the series and now i only have the last short story left– and i don't want to finish it becuase then it'll be over :(

so few authors manage to make me sad this way

[–] Toneswirly@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The ones who walk away from Omelas is one of my favorite stories. Powerful metaphor, that.

[–] meyotch@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 month ago

God she was an epic baller of a person too. An amazing personal story and she herself was a deep well of insight and compassionate wisdom. It comes through in most everything she wrote or said.

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[–] ook@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 month ago

I am going through her catalogue. Whatever is available at our library. So far I liked them all. Least of all Lavinia, that started off quite weak but also got better, but out of all the strong books it was the one at the bottom so far.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (6 children)

humans sent off some unwanted people, no scientists, to another planet

Telephone sanitizers?

[–] jaemo@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That's just the "B" ark. Ah. But I forget about the mutant star goat.

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[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] ook@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 month ago

Careful, if you go there you might run into Zensursula.

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is a clear thematic connection here, but when I started reading your comment I thought you were going to say it was because "Ursula" resembled "Ursus."

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[–] xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 72 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, it should be translated to Bearable and Unbearable.

[–] WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Bare and barenaked

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Took me too long to remember “Arctic” and “Antarctic” and I kept wondering how “North Pole / South Pole” translated to “Bearlandia / NoBearlandia”

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

In Chinese (I mean like most dialects), North Pole is just 北极 ("Northern Extreme"), South Pole is 南极 ("Southern Extreme"). Arctic is just 北极 with the extra character 地区 meaning area ("Northern Extreme Area"), Antartica is 南极洲 ("Southern Extreme Continent").

There's no weird etymology involving bears lol

Maybe we should let someone from China or Taiwan contact the aliens?

[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Someone once told me that the Chinese word for penguin translated to "business goose" and I cannot tell you how crestfallen I was when I looked it up and found out it wasn't true.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 month ago

I mean "企" character by itself isn't really a word, but maybe the person thought of 企业 (Enterprise/Bussiness), which I would say technically that person isn't like lying, just a misunderstanding of language.

But then again, I've only attended primary school grade-levels in China, so I'm no word expert either.

[–] randint@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 11 points 1 month ago

Penguins are called 企鵝/企鹅 (qì'é, [tɕʰi˥˩ ɤ˧˥]) in Chinese. It would be better literally translated as standing goose. It just so happens to share the same character 企 with the word for business. Most people don't know that 企 means standing anymore though.

[–] TargaryenTKE@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Read Three Body Problem if you wanna know how that goes

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Tbf she was an alien-worshipping cultist (cult wasn't technically founded at the time, but she had the mindset of a cultist)

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[–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Heh, I understood this obscure sci-fi joke!

[–] WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wouldn't call three body obscure

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 35 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Just wait until they hear about Virginland.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Gonna need you to be more specific about that. We have a lot of virginlands in the Americas

[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 7 points 1 month ago

Fun fact, Wyoming gets it's name from the Wyoming valley in Pennsylvania, and is a Delaware word for "big plain" in reference ti a river's flood plain.

[–] Im_old@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

They're actually called penguinland and no-penguinland

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Nah, isn't it more Towardsbearland and Awayfrombearland?

[–] Kirp123@lemmy.world 31 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Arktos means bear in Ancient Greek and the name Arctic comes from Arktikos which could be translated as near the bear. One theory is that it was named because of the Ursa constellations (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor). Antarctica just means opposite of the Arctic.

The scientific name for Brown Bears is Ursus Arctos. Ursus means bear in Latin while Arctos means bear in Ancient Greek so their name translated is Bear Bear.

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And then there's the grizzly bear, ursus arctos horribilis, horrible bear bear. My favourite part is that 'horribilis' is a mistranslation from English into Latin; 'grisly' is synonymous with 'horrible', but 'grizzly' actually means 'greyish'

Edit: Ursus arctos griseus or Ursus arctos canescens would be the most likely names of it had been translated correctly (grey bear bear and greying (with age) bear bear, respectively)

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

If it comes from the constellations, we got pretty fucking lucky

[–] lime@feddit.nu 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

bears and unbears

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Yep. It's Towards-bear-land, and Against-towards-bear-land.

IMO, nobody every made it clear if it's (against-towards)-bear-land, what would be away-from-bear-land, or against-(towards-bear-land).

[–] notsure@fedia.io 16 points 1 month ago (4 children)

...didn't i just see something about ursus arctos arctos?...

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's common courtesy to tell others of bear sightings.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 month ago

Yup. There was a meme about some bear (the european brown bear, maybe?) that was more bear than other bears, because it's latin name (as you pointed out) is literally bear bear bear.

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[–] Dicska@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

This joke would be rather hard to translate to my language because we use the same word for dirt (as in, 'soil' - in fact, in certain cases for actual soil, as well) as for Earth. Or ground.

We only have a separate word for the unclean meaning of dirt, or a compound word containing dirt to denote soil.

I can easily imagine this as an actual attempt from a beginner English speaker from home.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

But Antarctica doesn’t derive from “not Arctic”, but from ‘opposite of Arctic’. The bear part is right, though.

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[–] RattlerSix@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

A bit disappointed this isn't about the funny YouTube song about the Dirt Man

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ChatGPT or Bing Translate?

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[–] SektorC@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 month ago
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