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Geologists Angry About New 'Pluton' Definition

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what's-in-a-name dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to a story over at Nature, some geologists are ticked off at the International Astronomical Union for using the word 'pluton' to describe a round object orbiting the sun with a period more than 200 years. A pluton, it seems, is a common type of rock formation that exists in most Geology 101 curricula. IAU head Owen Gingerich is quoted as saying that he was only peripherally aware of the definition, and because it didn't show up on MS Word's spell check, he didn't think it was that important."

1 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. I blame the planetary naming problem on Microsoft. by ip_freely_2000 · · Score: 0, Troll

    If Microsoft had only had added a word that every geology noob knows, then the astronomy guys would have been better prepared at the conference.

    Or....maybe we should be angry at the academics who obviously are not running OpenOffice on Linux.

    ...please help me, who shall Slashdot rant on first?