Odd questions: who named the planet "Earth," and when, and why?

[WilliamPitt]

Just wondering.

[bif]

1. If I'm not mistaken it comes from the German "Erde"

I remember that from an etomology class I had back in college.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Etymology or entomology?

;)

[bif]

9. Etymology. Hey, it wasn't a spelling class.

[deucemagnet]

2. It's really not very far from calling it the planet Dirt.

It's not a very flattering name when you think about it.

[MonkeyFunk]

6. well

it was named before anybody knew it was a planet.

[anarch]

15. now that I think about it, I'm going to start calling it that:

the planet Dirt.

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Is America named after Amerigo Vaspucci, and what does "America" mean?

[EFerrari]

16. And why did South America steal our name?

[LynneSin]

5. I did - you have a fucking problem with that.....

[WilliamPitt]

7. Fuckin' hippie.

Keep that shit away from me.

:P

[LynneSin]

8. FREEPER - I just knew it

:hide:

[Parche]

10. Earth

Better name then Uranus.......................:rofl: :rofl: :hi:

[montanto]

12. Uranus

thats where the klingons are, right?

[DS1]

11. "earth" was the sound of Jesus Christ grunting while suffocating on the cross

earth

earth


earth


then it fell over and he got a faceful of dirt from 20 feet, so they dug a new hole to put the base of the cross in. that's where '6 feet under' came from. then they realized it was so deep that he wasn't hanging anymore, and was in fact 'knee deep' . so they 'ran him up a flagpole'.

all in all, it was a very productive day

[mzteris]

13. etymonline.....

Old Engligh: eorðe "ground, soil, dry land," also used (along with middangeard) for "the (material) world" (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld),

from Proto-Germanic,. *ertho (cf. Old Norse, . jörð, Middle Dutch: eerde, Old High German: erda, Gothic {East Germanic language}: airþa),

from Proto-Indo-European: base *er-.

The earth considered as a planet was so called from c.1400. Earthy in the fig. sense of "coarse, unrefined" is from 1594. Earthworm first attested 1591. Earthwork is from 1633. Earthlight apparently coined 1833 by British astronomer John Herschel.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=earth


edit to add: if you want a long "technical" discussion of this:

http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php/t-490936.html

[datasuspect]

14. Nathan Steinmetz named it

he was from brooklyn, it was oringally called "Oith"

[The2ndWheel]

17. Whoever had the power to do so

When they wanted to.

For control.

[guitar man]

18. God did

approximately 7000 years ago when he created it. Why? because that's what he wanted to call it, got a problem with that?? :silly:

[SteppingRazor]

19. Earth, referring to a planet, is only about 600 years old...

However, it comes from the Old English Eorthe, which had a double meaning as both "dirt" and "the place between heaven and the underworld."

On edit: to quote the Oxford English: "Men's notions of the shape and position of the earth have so greatly changed since Old Teutonic times, while the language of the older notions has long outlived them, that it is very difficult to arrange the senses and applications of the word in any historical order."

So, beyond about 1400 A.D., as the word splits into its Germanic and Saxon roots, it's impossible to quite pin down when it goes from simply meaning "land" to meaning something much loftier.

[deucemagnet]

20. Maybe the Earth needs a corporate sponsorship and a snappier name.

How about the Capital One Biosphere? :evilgrin: