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AxialGem t1_ixz5qc4 wrote

Reply to comment by ARPanda700 in You see more suns at night than in the daytime. by ParticleDetector

What makes something a sun, according to you?
Like, a star of the same type?

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shaneswa t1_ixzcyd7 wrote

Well naming a star "Sun" is probably the most important qualifier. What makes something a Jeffery, according to you?

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AxialGem t1_ixzdxue wrote

Haha, I mean you're right. A Jeffery, like all concepts, is simply that which we habitually call a Jeffery. Which can be many different things I guess

Not all Karens are named Karen either ;)

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ARPanda700 t1_ixz75qi wrote

> the luminous celestial body around which the earth and other planets revolve

I'd say a star that provides anything for the bodies revolving around it, even if it's just that gravity guidance, is a sun. A star solo-drifting off in space wouldn't be a sun in my mind, but I'm also not an astronomer so what do I know!

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AxialGem t1_ixz8iym wrote

Sure, that's why I asked what you personally meant I guess, I'm not sure whether 'sun' is always used in astronomy with a super rigorous definition, although I've heard 'sun-like star' plenty as well.
Afaik it is thought that most stars do in fact have planets, but ofc I'm also not an astronomer lol

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Reddit-User-3000 t1_iy2mi22 wrote

Yeah, “Sun” and “Star that acts like our sun” are technically both correct a according to many dictionaries including the Oxford English Dictionary, and Dictionary.com. However the latter also recognizes “Goblinmode” as a word. As incorrect phrases become common place they are eventually accepted, which is what happened in the case of the Sun. We have named many stars, ours not disclosed. We named our star “The Sun”, just as we named the largest known Star “UY Scuti”. At first calling stars Suns would have been the same as calling them Scutis, but since it has became more widely used and accepted it has become correct according to some reputable sources.

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AxialGem t1_iy2nmsz wrote

Definitely. Generalization is one of the most common and well-understood types of semantic change. Even if it wasn't in dictionaries, whether or not a word is commonly used in a certain way is an observable fact lol. But yea, they are right to list that broader usage of course

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