Deathbyhours t1_j9of41x wrote on February 23, 2023 at 12:52 PM

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Starship greenlit for launch after static fire test by DevilsRefugee

Are you complaining because people aren’t capitalizing the name of the product? Granted, it isn’t a starship, but it is a Starship. Is that better?

mateogg t1_j9p4pk6 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 4:04 PM

And this is exactly why I think it's a stupid name. The word already existed, and it had a definition, and this does not fit it. It's kind of like designing a new airplane and calling it Flying Car.

Deathbyhours t1_j9p5s9q wrote on February 23, 2023 at 4:11 PM

So you think Musk should have made up a word for it, like creativity-challenged automakers do?

It’s a marketing name. He is, much more than anything else, a salesman. He could have called it the Star Sphere, I suppose. Of course, that is also already a thing. Wombat? No, also already a thing.

You must find military aircraft names very frustrating.

mateogg t1_j9p8t20 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 4:30 PM

Okay, I was taking "context matters" for granted, but apparently I shouldn't have.

"Falcon". Obviously that word already has a definition and a different one, so that fits my previous complaint. But the difference is that in that case there's no ambiguity. It's a perfectly fine name, I personally think it sounds great and goes well with the object. I love it. Now, if a new species of bat was discovered and it was named "Black Falcon" or something like that, I would say that's fucking stupid, because in that context the name becomes confusing.

Meanwhile Starship has connotations related to space travel that make it evoke false notions in that context, in the same way that calling something that is not spherical a "star sphere" would evoke a false notion because yeah, you call something a sphere, people will expect to see a sphere in pretty much any context.

Wombat. Weird ass name for it. Not very good, in my opinion. But no one will expect a wombat. It would create no ambiguity. But finding a new bear species and calling it "great wombat" would be weird. This kinda thing happens sometimes, and it's always pointed out that this or that name is actually a misnomer that sparks misconceptions. Usually, though, they happen by accident, because of lack of knowledge, people assume two animals are more closely related than they actually are, or that an animal behaves a certain way when it doesn't.

You say "starship" and people will think something very different to what this is, because context matters. This is either stupid and short-sighted or malicious and deceptive. Either way I don't like it.

Deathbyhours t1_j9p9qc4 wrote on February 23, 2023 at 4:36 PM

The star sphere is the name for the ancients’ earth-centric concept of the “realm of the stars,” a sphere with the earth at its midpoint, the night sky, the cosmos.

Personally, I think it would be a pretty cool name for a spaceship.