Re: The really dumb thing about the planetary classification conference


<garabik-news-2005-05@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ed61qb$nh6$2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ekkehard Dengler <ED-RS@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ekkehard Dengler wrote:
I'm afraid I have no idea, Harlan, but what irritates me no end
about
the
new term is that "[adjective] planet" should logically be a hyponym
of
"planet". I really dislike that sort of jargon. In fact, my
aversion
to
usages like the following probably made it easier for me to
empathise
with
Daniel's preoccupation with the meanings of "rare".
The exceptions perplex even further: "fake planet" or "phony planet"
would not logically be a hyponym of "planet".

And "apparent exception" somehow manages to simultaneously be a
hyponym
of
"exception" and, er, something else.

Is that like "the smallest natural number that can't be described in
under sixty-eight letters"?

Do you appreciate self-referential rhetorical questions as much as I do?
Anyway, while a miniature elephant may not be an elephant, a dwarf
rabbit is
definitely a rabbit. Even the lesser dwarf lemur can be considered a
lemur,
though admittedly not a "true lemur".

A nicer example: a red dwarf is not a (fairy tale) dwarf.

But it is a dwarf in the sense in which a white dwarf is a dwarf, since
"dwarf" is short for "dwarf star", and "red dwarf" is a hyponym of "dwarf".
By the way, "dwarf star" is not to "star" as "dwarf planet" is to "planet",
or so I understand. Finally, my example was nice, too, wasn't it:
http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/av/images/images/img2112.gif.

Regards,
Ekkehard


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