Starship Asterisk*

• RJN's "you RAN us"

"your Anus" : traditional English
"you RAN us" : Neiroff choice
"You're a NUSS!" : Lakdawalla choice (NUSS : German for nut]
"urine us" : Bris/Baptism accident
"urinous" : Latinized form of Οὐρανός, the Greek word for sky

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001806/ wrote:
The Planetary Society Blog
On the pronunciation of "Uranus"
By Emily Lakdawalla | Jan. 12, 2009

<<I'm writing my script for my next 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, which will be in honor of the 23rd anniversary of the Voyager 2 Uranus encounter, and since this will be an audio podcast I have to confront the problem of how to pronounce the name of the planet. Merriam-Webster lists two accepted pronunciations, either of which sets schoolchildren tittering, essentially "urine us" or "your anus." Actually, it's not just schoolchildren who titter. Over the last week as I've occasionally been researching the topic I've enjoyed tossing people offhand comments such as "I'm researching Uranus right now," or "there's a new dark spot on Uranus," or my favorite, "hey, did you know they found a new ring around Uranus?" pronouncing it using the second of the two choices, and I invariably get a smile at least.

Some of you are probably thinking "oh, grow up," but honestly, when you talk about Uranus to any English-speaking audience, young or old, I promise you that the humorous sound of the planet's name is the first thing that ninety percent of them think of. (I can't speak to what the name sounds like to non-English-speakers.) So, in my opinion, you have to confront the problem directly. Especially if you're dealing with schoolchildren. Not to comment on it makes you look either like a clueless idiot or a stuffy, humorless bore.

In a past life I taught science to fifth grade students (10-year-olds), and the course included a segment on the solar system. I planned to have the kids deliver oral presentations on different planets. The problem suddenly became one that I was going to give to some hapless 10-year old who was going to have to get up at the front of his or her class and talk for five minutes about Your Anus. Clearly I couldn't do that to the kid without addressing it directly first. So here's the solution I came up with: at the beginning of the solar system unit, I asked the kids to name planets and other things in the solar system, and (inevitably) the class clown shouted out "your anus!!" to the amusement of all. I also smiled and laughed, and pointed out that there was another pronunciation that was almost as bad, and then I got up and wrote the following in big letters on the board:

• You're a nuss!

Then I instructed the class full of kids to turn to their neighbors, point, and accuse one other of being a "nuss," which they enjoyed.

A cop-out? Yes. But at least it got every kid in the room to say the name of the planet out loud, and to do it while thinking about a word that, if nonsensical, was at least not scatological. And we were all able to move on and have a good time exploring the solar system without too much embarrassment over the pronunciation of the name of one of its largest members.>>

harry wrote:G'day from the land of ozzzz

From the land down under, there may be another meaning.

Orca wrote:I always pronounced it, "Ur- A - nus." But then I'd hear scientists and narrators on documentaries refer to it as "Urine-us." Perhaps if someone had, early on, started pronouncing it as, say, "Ur-ON-us," we'd not have such a...er...problem? Is that really the word for it?

neufer wrote: Scientists & narrators on documentaries usually refer to it with the classical: "URINOUS."
......................................................................
URINOUS, a. Of or pertaining to urine, or partaking of its qualities;
having the character (BLUE?) or odor of urine; similar to urine.
......................................................................
Not exactly as "RUINOUS" a pronunciation as what we all learned
as kids (when we kids were more naive than today) and
easily inflected into Emily Lakdawalla's "YOU'RE A NUSS!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus_%28mythology%29 wrote:
Uranus (pronounced /ˈjʊərənəs, jʊˈreɪnəs/)

• ---------------------------------------
  Did Uranus (yoo-RAY-nus) get "back mispronounced"
  from Uranium (yoo-RAY-nee-əm)?
  
  What if we were to "back mispronounce" other elements
  ---------------------------------------
  * 95 Americium (AM-ə-RIS-ee-əm)
  * 97 Berkelium (bər-KEE-lee-əm)
  * 99 Einsteinium (eyen-STYE-nee-əm)
  o 104 Rutherfordium (RUDH-ər-FOR-dee-əm)
  o 109 Meitnerium (myet-NAIR-ee-əm or myet-NER-ee-əm)
  o 111 Roentgenium (rent-GEN-ee-əm or runt-GEN-ee-əm)
  ---------------------------------------

harry wrote:This reminds of that TV show, that was about nothing.

Now what was that show? It was about 3 Men and a babe, who in their record breaking show ended in jail.

Orca wrote:Well I had a math teacher that had a good point about the pronunciation
of the greek letter phi, Φ. Apparently some folks pronounce it "fee."
But if they did, so goes the argument, we'd have to pronounce π, Pi, as "pee."

So I guess you'd use PEE to find the volume of URINE-US.

bystander wrote:How Do You Pronounce 'Uranus'?
Universe Today - 2010 Jan 15

neufer wrote:The Uranus-Sixty Symbols video makes two obvious mistakes...what are they

emc wrote:

neufer wrote:The Uranus-Sixty Symbols video makes two obvious mistakes...what are they

Cyan is not blue-green

• No

emc wrote:Uranus is no longer a planet due to its strange rotation... and has received its own category... it is now known as a perpendicunet

neufer wrote:The Uranus-Sixty Symbols video makes two obvious mistakes...what are they?

BMAONE23 wrote:That's Ed...Always horsing around

Chris Peterson wrote:

neufer wrote:The Uranus-Sixty Symbols video makes two obvious mistakes...what are they?

I picked up on three mistakes in the "obvious" category:

(1) none of the Moons are named after characters in "Shakespearean novels", as he wrote no novels;

Chris Peterson wrote:(2) they were all a bit sloppy with their props so far as whether orbits and rotations should be clockwise or counterclockwise, but the apple prop, which represented Earth (viewed from above) was shown spinning the wrong way;

Chris Peterson wrote:(3) the north pole of Uranus doesn't point at the Sun, except once every 84 years.