this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
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Ah, I was wondering why NASA kept talking about "Trans Lunar Burn" and "Lunar orbit" instead of "Trans moonar burn" and "moonar orbit". So silly to talk about "circumsolar orbits" when it's clearly "Circumsunar orbit".
The only major exception is Earth, where orbits around us are called out in english, more specifically, the initials. LEO, MEO, HEO. The L stands for "Low", so I'm sure you can figure out what the M and H stands for.
And no, using latin to name things have not been falling out of fashion. Every time we discover a species (which we still do, every single day), their species are immediately named in latin.
And lots of things, are still called by their latin names in English. e.g. (exempli gratia) Virus. Alibi. Malfeasance. Agenda. Incalculable. Modicum. Mundane. Ambiguous. Bacteria. Naive. Atrocity. Cull. Debilitate. Et Cetera.
I could go on but you get the point. Latin is everywhere. You just didn't know that it's Latin to begin with.
NASA calls our star the Sun. NASA calls our moon the Moon or Earth's Moon. They use solar and lunar anyway, except for a few instances where they use Greek, like 'heliosphere.' It's inconsistent with everything else and it bugs me, but that's what they do.
New species the last couple years have been named after David Attenborough, Mothra, a teacher, a cartoon character, and one that uses ChiShona in the same way that Latin is more commonly used. Latin is still used, of course, but with decreasing frequency.
Yes. They use the english name when talking about the object in english. So what? In Sweden our scientists call Luna for "Månen". Because that's the name in our language. But the standard of naming things in latin stems from that every scientist will speak the same language.
If you want to gather studies about dogs. You'll be very limited if you only know their english name. So instead you'll use the latin name. Canis Familiaris. And all of a sudden you will find studies from all across the world.
Yes, they have been naming species after people and things. Those that discover a species will often get the naming rights. But they still have a latin name.
Platysaurus attenboroughi.
It's in latin. And because of that. Every single scientist that are familiar with the concept of how we name species will see that the species Platysaurus Attenbiroughi is in the Platysaurus genus, and saurus means that's it's a reptile.
Euptychia attenboroughi.
So we know that this is an animal in the Eutychia genus. Named after Attenborough.
Trigonopterus attenboroughi
By now you should know what genus this animal is in. And that's why we give them latin names.
If we just called then all "attenboroughi" it would be really fucking confusing about which animal it is we're actually talking about.
Just because you don't know that you use any latin. Doesn't mean the useage have decreased.
Latin isn't going anywhere. Our entire scientific understanding of life on earth is built on the back of latin. It's the language all scientists speak.
So when a doctor writes in the journal that you have a fracture in your femur. Every other doctor on the planet earth will know which bone it is he was talking about.