I’m English and I find the OED a little too prescriptive at times. Oxford English is its own thing really.
Sorry, my misunderstanding. That makes sense.
If the SC has as much moxie as Captain Kirk, I imagine the conversation may continue something like this:
SC: Well, I suppose it does mean that, yes, but…
A: Why’d you name your planet ‘Mud’?
SC: EARTH!
A: Earth, yes, sorry.
SC: If you continue to poke fun and soil my planet’s reputation, I’m going to turn you into ground alien meat, and enjoy your earthy flavor, you dirty Blehassolian! If all your people are as rude as you, I suggest you rename your planet: Asshole. How do you like them apples, Assy McAssface, the Blehassolian from planet Asshole!?
Earth isn’t just what we live on, it’s where a good portion of our food comes from, and it affects what can be grown in any given area. It can vary quite a bit, even over short distances, and can make the difference between liveable and non-liveable areas
It is also synonymous with land, which is often used in the sense of an area where people live.
Air, while also necessary for life, is fairly consistent.
(Honestly, I think that other planetary languages would understand that words have multiple meanings)
Well, as I noted, three other dictionaries agree with the OED. Are there any that agree with your pronunciation?
And as another American, I have never heard your pronunciation. So dueling anecdotes don’t really resolve anything.
Well, there’s the fact that it’s a Latin word and pronounced that way in Latin.
Also, Wiktionary suggests that “soul/sole” is a homophone in the US.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sol
And this Reddit thread has many people who see “Sol” rhyming with “sole”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/namenerds/comments/lxqoux/i_need_a_consensus_how_would_you_pronounce_sol/
It’s simply inaccurate to say it’s not pronounced that way in American English when Americans speaking English pronounce it that way.
Do some pronounce it like “Saul”? I guess there must be some who do.
‘here’s how we pronounce it’ cannot really be refuted with ‘well, I’ve never heard of that’
I’ve always pronounced it as if it were the nickname for Solomon. Sahl, I guess. Now that I’ve spoken, I hope that settles things.
BTW, I’m an American and a Latin scholar (3 years of Latin in high school—yep, 3). Strict Latin pronunciations are a lost cause, at least in American English.
Seriously, though, I have never been sure how it’s pronounced. Gonna rewatch The Martian and go with whatever Matt Damon says.
Perhaps not definitively, but surely it’s a reasonable refutation to “that’s how I’ve always heard it.”
The idea that you can refute details of someone else’s dialectical pronunciation is prescriptivist nonsense.
Sorry maybe this is a sore point for me. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m pronouncing stuff wrong when they just apparently think their version is the only right one.
Yeah, that is annoying. I have never corrected anyone’s pronunciation, except maybe my son when he was very young.
Speaking of those wacky OED brits, in UFO they commonly refer to the alien craft speeds as percentages of the speed of light, so we hear “Sahl decimal three”, for the written “Sol .3”.
I, as a wacky American, would say “.3 soul”.
Does anyone pronounce “solar” with a short O?
I’ve always heard “solar” with a long O, so I pronounce “Sol” with a long O.
Or the people who refer to them as “sohwah panels”.
I also wonder if there’s a Spanish influence. I remember the Honda del Sol car back in the day, and I see a number of businesses with “Sol” in the name that references the Spanish name for the Sun. Given the increasing influence of the Spanish language on the US, perhaps that is changing how some people pronounce the word, and might somewhat explain regional variations. Maybe it was an unusual pronunciation in the US in the past but it is changing and some dictionaries haven’t caught up to include the variation.
Er, no? “Light” = lux. So “tres decimae celeritatis lucis” in Federation Standard.
Could be. I live in a border state.
No, that’s an acronym S.O.L. = Speed Of Light
A perfectly reasonable approach. But certain words, when abbreviated to a syllable, get pronounced phonetically the way they appear, not as they were articulated in the full word. For football fans, “Patriots” versus “Pats,” as an example. I think sol, as it appears and divorced from its parent, would be pronounced “sahl” if it followed this convention.