Slashdot Mirror
Girl Who Named Pluto, At 11, Dies At 90
notthepainter notes the passing of the woman who, as an 11-year-old girl, named Pluto. "Frozen and lonely, Planet X circled the far reaches of the solar system awaiting discovery and a name. It got one thanks to an 11-year-old British girl named Venetia Burney, an enthusiast of the planets and classical myth. On March 14, 1930, the day newspapers reported that the long-suspected 'trans-Neptunian body' had been photographed for the first time, she proposed to her well-connected grandfather that it be named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. Venetia Phair, as she became by marriage, died April 30 in her home in Banstead, in the county of Surrey, England. She was 90. ... More vexing to Mrs. Phair was the persistent notion that she had taken the name from the Disney character. 'It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet, rather than the other way around,' she told the BBC. 'So, one is vindicated.' " Venetia's great-uncle Henry, who was a housemaster at Eton, had successfully proposed that the two dwarf moons of Mars be named Phobos and Deimos.
How is this even a story? Maybe if she had named a REAL planet...
Now THAT is a nerd's nerd. At the age of eleven, names a planet after a Roman god. I can just picture it now. "Grandfather, I rather think that naming it aaaafter the god Pluto might be the most appropriate course." Maybe I've seen too many Fruit Newton commercials, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Pluto is a dog's dog. Goofy is a dog trying to be a man.
If I ran around sniffing crotches and licking my goods, I'd...never get out of the house. What was my point again?
Don't they mean Planet IX?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
Pluto is a dog's dog. Goofy is a dog trying to be a man.
Actually, Pluto is a mouses dog.
What I find baffling is that Goofy is a dog, and Pluto is a dog. But Goofy wears clothes, drives, and talks - and Pluto just runs around, barks and wags his tail.
You know, that's not very far out there when you are talking about this group. Years ago when Minnie started acting strange, many thought she had had a psychotic break, some said that she was just plain crazy... In the end, it turned out she was just fu*king Goofy...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Should we respect Goofy's aspiration to transcend his origins and disapprove of Pluto's ignomy, or should we reject Goofy as a social-climbing pretender and admire Pluto's authenticity?
So where's the C&D letter against Disney for using the name she coined for a planet?
Surely it causes consumer confusion.. I mean, when I see titles like The Complete Pluto, Volume One; I expect a DVD authorized by the foundation or scientists who discovered the planet, and it to be about the planet.
But instead the proper trade name as assigned the Pluto brand planet is used with a piece of fiction in a manner that is not only confusing but dilutes the mark...
we are tackling the big issues here today aren't we?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
or a couple of mirrors. Oh wait, your anus? That's visible to most anyone, mister playboy. :)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
When I was your age, Pluto was Planet X!
-Venetia Phair
I think it's clear to any REAL dog that Goofy is nothing but an uppity Uncle Rover, sitting and rolling over for the massah to get a handout.
--Obyron
correlation does not imply causation, this is no proof that naming planets causes death. (Come on, someone had to say that, this is /.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Wait... so Pluto was called "Planet X" before it had a name, and it's no longer officially a planet?
So that means it used to be Planet X, but now it's an ex-planet!