Poul Anderson, with his rich vocabulary, can usually be relied on to get language right although I questioned "meteorite" here and he did not use "Venerian" as the appropriate adjective for "Venus."
Two Appropriate And Two Inappropriate Uses Of "Vulcan"
In astronomy, a hypothetical planet closer to the Sun than Mercury was appropriately called "Vulcan."
In Poul Anderson's "Vulcan's Forge," an asteroid that passes closer to the Sun than Mercury is appropriately called "Vulcan."
In Star Trek, an extra-solar planet is inappropriately called "Vulcan."
The narrators of William Dexter's World In Eclipse tell us that a previously unknown planet in the Asteroid Belt is "Vulcan." Why? Its inhabitants call it "Hafna." Abductees taken there from Earth would surely refer to the planet by its native name. Terrestrial astronomers would not call Hafna "Vulcan" because:
(i) they do not know of it;
(ii) it would be an inappropriate name;
(iii) that name has already been appropriately applied to a hypothetical planet located in the opposite direction from Earth.
When I read such texts in my teens, I accepted. Now, I question.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And don't forget Anderson's baffling and idiosyncratic use of "glade." As we know, he used "glade" to refer to how the sun or moon shone on waters, but the word simply does not have any such meaning. Every dictionary I've checked insists "glade" means an open space within a wooded area. Anderson MUST have known of that "ordinary" meaning for "glade."
Unless some obscure, but legitimate past use of "glade" for the way Anderson used it is discovered, I have to question the way he used that word.
I had never thought, before you discussed it, to have been bothered by this use of "glade." Now every time I see it in one of Anderson's stories, I take note of it!
Sean
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