What she said
I don’t understand what the problem is. When I learned the alphabet back in kindergarten, I learned that there were five vowels. They were a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Now if you count the vowels in that list you get six, not five. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are five vowels, and y is one of them, sometimes.
So why can’t we just say there are eight planets, and Pluto is one of them. We can then define “planet” with a definition that excludes Pluto, while giving Pluto some kind of honorary planet status.
We do things like this all the time. There are crayolas called “white” and “black” despite the fact that those are not real colors. And Canada is a member of the United Nations, despite the fact that it’s not a real country. Also, Paris Hilton recorded a CD despite the fact that she’s not a real singer.
Plus, annika’s solution has the added benefit of letting me avoid saying things like “well, I’ve been doing x since way back when Pluto was a planet.”
August 21st, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Hahaha. She funny.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
awesome. who is this annika you speak of? she sounds like quite a philosopher.
August 24th, 2006 at 9:55 am
They’ve decided: Pluto is no longer a planet.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060824_planet_definition.html