12/30/2009

Rahav and Oron

It's official.
This evening, I attended a ceremony to give Hebrew names to the planets Uranus and Neptune. I was invited because I was one of 15 people to suggest the name "Rahav" for Neptune (I explained it here). Well over 4000 votes were cast for each planet, and the two winners, Rahav and Oron, both won in landslides (c. 2900 votes for Rahav over c. 1200 votes for Tarshish; Oron defeated Shahak by c. 2800 to c. 1500).
I would have liked it if the organizers had recognized those who proposed the winning names, even if only by some kind of certificate of recognition. Instead, the organizers and academic heads talked, barely mentioning that the 'laypeople' in the audience were the ones who actually did the grunt work in this case, and then everyone got magnets with the names. Disappointing, but either way, this is definitely going into my translation resume.
Shout out to BZ for his efforts, especially since he basically introduced this contest to the English-speaking world (which I believe I was the only representative of at the ceremony), even though his proposal of "Shahak" for Uranus settled for runner-up.
I wonder if anyone else has ever named a child and a planet in the same week.
The Hebrew news item is here. This is, as far as I know, the first public announcement in English.

No comments:

Post a Comment