Meirl
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Had south pole been discovered before north pole, their names would’ve been based on penguins instead of bears.
The Wikipedia page has a great explanation about this:
The word Arctic comes from theย Greekย wordย แผฯฮบฯฮนฮบฯฯย (arktikos), “near the Bear, northern”[4]ย and from the wordย แผฯฮบฯฮฟฯย (arktos), meaning bear.[5]ย The name refers either to theย constellationย known asย Ursa Major, the “Great Bear”, which is prominent in the northern portion of theย celestial sphere, or to the constellationย Ursa Minor, the “Little Bear”, which contains theย celestial north poleย (currently very nearย Polaris, the current north Pole Star, or North Star).[6]
[Wikipedia – Arctic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic)
I love that Australia just means “southern”.
Yucatรกn meaning “I don’t understand your language” is always funny to me.
Umm ackshually, it’s about star constellations. Ursa Minor, meaning “little bear” (and often known as the little dipper) always points north since the tip of the tail/ladle is Polaris, the north star. Bear in Latin is “ursa” whereas bear in Greek is “arctos.”
So scientists did that thing we love doing for some godforsaken reason and mixed-and-matched Greek and Latin. Artic means “near the bear” and Antarctic means “away from the bear” in Greek, referencing the Latin name of the Ursa Minor constellation.
Pengwengs
In Washington State there is a pair of lakes called Keechelus and Kachess, which mean “Few fish” and “More fish” respectively. And I think that carries the same vibe.
i wonder what other languages call them and what those words mean
Until a few years ago, I thought both poles had bears and penguins. I blame kids cartoons that misled me.
Actually I believe this was referring to Ursa Major and the North Star, not the animal. Arktikos means โnear the bearโ and the opposite direction is โaway from the bearโ, both in reference to the pole star and its associated constellations.
So arctic monkeys is bear monkeys
TIL!
To be fair: I would be MUCH more concerned about the presence of bears in the time before the invention of firearms
Arctic vs Ant-Arctic
There probably isn’t much else going on. I mean, you could call them “snow” and “new snow”
To be fair, that information is really helpful in the wilderness
Sometimes I have this intrusive thought about introducing polar bears to the southpole as an act of eco terrorism. Good thing I’m not a billionaire, but one day, some rich fuck is gonna pull that wheel.
So Articuno is just one bear
๐ค male stripclub names are percolating in my head. Twerkulating if you willโฆ
Letโs all agree that from now on they are named after bears or no bears. Much more fun.
I remember a short skit a while back about aliens having problems with universal translators.
“So your furthest north point is called ‘bear land.’ And the furthest southern point is ‘not bear land.”
“It is? I mean wait yes but that’s still not right…”
Naming that animal was taboo during thousands of years. Horrible nasty things lived in the night, beyond the campfire.
And “no penguins” and “penguins”
It would’ve been called Australia, but then a chunk of land filled with deadly mistakes and some really nice natives was found
After that the ideas had kinda run out
Become unbearable
The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called — in the local language — Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.
The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don’t Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
Rainclouds clustered around the bald heights of Mt. Oolskunrahod (‘Who is this Fool who does Not Know what a Mountain is’)
I can confirm, being one of those bears (since moved to the city, but return home to my bears occasionally.
Stuff like this is why twitter being banned is not that great of a loss
The post is wrong. It’s a coincidence and it’s about constellations. Ursa major and Ursa minor or whatever