LogFAQs > #879718978

zebatov posted...

You mean a liberal and the liberal.

There is a difference between Liberal and liberal - the former refers to a member of the Liberal Party (which many British Commonwealth countries have), the latter is someone with leftward-leaning tendencies. Similarly "God" is the deity of the Abrahamic religions, whereas "god" is just a generic term for any deity.

Likewise, "moon" is the generic term, "Moon" is our specific moon.

zebatov posted...

Like if someone asked me what someone's name was, I couldn't just say "The human." They asked for a name.

If a person's name actually was, say, "Human Jones", then yes, you absolutely could say "Human" is his name.

I find your argument kind of hilarious, because "Luna" is every bit as generic as "Moon" - you're just using a different language so that it doesn't sound that way to English speaking ears. "Luna" is simply the word for "moon" in Latin, as well as several of its offshoot languages - to someone speaking Italian, Spanish, Corsican, and probably a couple others I'm not aware of, there are many "lunas" floating around their parent planets.

Science fiction writers decided to call the Moon "Luna" (and Earth "Terra" and the Sun "Sol") simply because they sound cooler, even though those are literally just the Latin translations of "Moon", "Earth", and "Sun" (abbreviated) respectively.

zebatov posted...

Up until recently, we didn't have a well-known name for it.

Sure we did - that name is "The Moon". It's even the official recognized name by the International Astronomical Union, which is the body responsible for such things.
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