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From: kallis@pen.DEC
Newsgroups: net.astro,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Venerean Sexadecimal?!
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Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 09:27:11 EST
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Posted: Thu Feb 13 09:27:11 1986
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On the subject of plasnetary adjectives:

It is perfectly true that the initial adjectives concerning planets were
astrological/medicopsychological.  The idea generally that the planetary
influence manifested itself in personality; i.e., a person born (or whatever
else put him or her) under the influence of Mars was "martial," and was a
good fighter, aggressive, etc.  On that basis, we got:

Saturnine, jovial, martial, venereal, mercurial, and lunar.

However, popular usage has given us "Jovian" for Jupitter adjective and
noun (for inhabitant, hypothetical though such may be), "Martian" for Mars,
"Mercurian" for mercury, and "Terrestrial" for Earth (Terra).  Saturn is
a bit unclear, though "Saturnian" seems to be taking hold in some quarters,
and therefore, "Uranian," "Plutonian," and [dare we say it?] "Venusian" seem
consistent.  

But why?

The original meanings of some of the words as practiced as late as the
Seventeenth Century have taken on personality meanings, per their original
medicopsychological meanings.  "Jovial" is generally associated with a good-
natured person.  A "saturnine" person is morose and sardonic.  A "martial"
thing or person is associated with military matters, "mercurial" means hard
to grasp, among other things.  

Languages evolve to meet changing situations.  Just as now "---sonic" has
been sorted out since the mid 1940s (originally, "supersonic" was used to
denote both "higher-pitched frequencies than humans can hear" and "speeds
faster than Mach 1"; now the former is "ultrasonic"), the differentiation
between that denoting characteristics of physical planets and that denoting
personalities should be sufficient reason to use the "..ian" suffix.

Steve Kallis, Jr.