[HN Gopher] Wishing Everyone a Happy Solsthelion
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Wishing Everyone a Happy Solsthelion
Author : ColinWright
Score : 58 points
Date : 2024-12-28 15:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.solipsys.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.solipsys.co.uk)
| graemep wrote:
| Amusing, but the entire point of a greeting at this time of year
| is based on a particular culture and history. Its not purely
| astronomical, and its significance is reversed in northern and
| southern hemispheres and is not all that relevant in the tropics.
| roebk wrote:
| Happy Solsthelion!
| saghm wrote:
| FWIW the page specifically describes it as the "December
| Solstice" and has a footnote for that mentioning the specific
| seasons for each hemisphere. I imagine the author is well aware
| of how the event varies by geography.
|
| As for what the "entire point" of a greeting is, I'd argue that
| the "entire point" is a bit of a philosophical question that
| depends on what you think it means for something to be "the
| point". Maybe a few thousand years from now, instead of
| seemingly ignoring the culture and history you refer to,
| Solsthelion will just be seen as another chapter in the history
| of the greetings used during this time of year, just like the
| cultural reference in one common greeting you might encounter
| this time of year might have seemed transgressive back when it
| debuted to people fond of previous cultural traditions during
| the same part of the year.
| graemep wrote:
| > has a footnote for that mentioning the specific seasons for
| each hemisphere.
|
| It mentions winter and summer, seasons that do not exist for
| a lot of the world. For example, in South Asia the main
| seasonal variation is the monsoon rains.
| lentil_soup wrote:
| In terms of weather you're right, but those areas will
| still have the shortest/longest day on the solstice even if
| the change is relatively small.
| graemep wrote:
| If you are right on the equator, then you would not have
| any chance. Close to the equator a hardly noticeable
| change. I have lived near the equator (7deg north,
| mostly) and the change in day length (about half an hour
| between longest and shortest days) is not noticeable.
| adrian_b wrote:
| While what you say is true now, in the distant past in all the
| cultures that had celebrations or holidays around this time of
| the year their origin had been purely astronomical, in
| celebrations of the Winter Solstice.
|
| The reinterpretations of the Solstice celebrations to fit in
| various religions and the shift in the calendar from the true
| astronomical event have occurred much later.
|
| By the time of Julius Cesar, after his calendar reform, the
| Winter Solstice occurred on the 25th of December, which is the
| reason for having Christmas on this day. The reason why
| Christmas is now shifted by 3 days from the solstice is that
| the Gregorian calendar reform has not restored the calendar of
| the time corresponding to the start of the Christian era, but
| the calendar of the 4th century (when the procedure for
| selecting the date for Easter has been established), and the
| calendar of the 4th century was shifted by these 3 days.
|
| Before Julius Cesar, the Roman calendar shifted a lot from year
| to year in comparison with the astronomical calendar. It is
| likely that when first established, the 1st of March (their New
| Year) of the Roman calendar occurred on the Spring Equinox, but
| then it has drifted a lot. After the Julian calendar reform,
| the solstices and equinoxes occurred around the 25th of their
| months, then they have drifted away until the Gregorian reform
| has set them around the 22th of their months.
| cies wrote:
| > all the cultures that had celebrations or holidays around
| this time of the year
|
| I expect this not to be true... Cultures with only a moon
| calendar (ancient Arabs) do not even have the means to
| express the date!
| adrian_b wrote:
| That is why I have qualified "cultures" with "that had
| ...", a condition that can be true only for the cultures
| with solar calendars or mixed solar-lunar calendars.
| kadoban wrote:
| You don't need a calendar to have seasonal celebrations.
|
| I doubt there was ~ever any society that couldn't tell you
| approximately where they were in the year anyway. All it
| takes is making marks on literally anything, one per day,
| or having a decent memory. What society doesn't have at
| least one person doing that?
| graemep wrote:
| The history of greetings currently used in certain cultures
| rather proves the point that such things are dependent on
| culture and history.
|
| I also doubt it was ever purely astronomical. Holidays would
| have happened because a lot of normal activity would have
| slowed or stopped in pre-industrial societies, and
| celebrations would have depended on what their traditions and
| beliefs about the significance of the solstice was.
| timeon wrote:
| In few languages I know, name is about the night, which is
| pretty astronomical thing. In Scandinavian countries they
| use pagan name while celebrating Christian holiday, so
| cultural thing is pretty loose here.
| germandiago wrote:
| Amazing post. Thank you, I learnt some here.
| 369548684892826 wrote:
| Happy Solsthelion! It's not the best portmanteau though as it's
| taken the 'sun' part of both its donor words. Happy Peristice!
| psychoslave wrote:
| Came here with the same reflection. Also the article doesn't
| mention how _Solsthelion_ is supposed to be pronounced, and I
| guess most English speaker meeting the word in the wild would
| more likely pronounce _th_ as /d/.
|
| _Happy Peristice_ is also close to aperitif, which is great
| for a celebration _sol_ icitation.
| corobo wrote:
| "Sols, the lion" is all I'm getting out of my mind meat :(
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| Solst-Helion is what the author was going for, I think, but
| I saw what you did too, lol.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Peristice is much, much better. And helps me learn which one
| peri- is.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Unfortunately, perihelion is not a good name for the point on
| the orbit that is closest to the Sun, which also makes
| "peristice" mostly meaningless, even if much better than
| "solsthelion".
|
| Peri- means "around" (like in "perimeter" or "periphery",
| where the Latin translation of "periphery" is
| "circumference", or in "periscope", which means "look
| around"), which does not suggest much in terms of distance.
| For instance, both the Earth and Neptune move "around" the
| Sun, but at vastly different distances.
|
| Apohelion for the most distant point on the orbit is a better
| name, because apo- means "away", but it still not the best,
| because "away" refers to direction of movement towards
| exterior, and not to the distance from the center. A body can
| be moving away, but still be very close to the center.
|
| The Greek prefixes meaning "close" and "distant" are "anchi-"
| and "tele-" (first "e" is long). Therefore much more
| appropriate names would have been "anchihelion" and
| "telehelion", for the closest and for the most distant points
| on the orbit. The prefixes "anchi-" and "tele-" have already
| been used in the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" of Homer, e.g. for
| "close combat" (like with swords) and "distant combat" (like
| with arrows).
|
| "Solstice" is a better name, because "-stice" is cognate with
| "stay" (and with "stand"), and it refers to the fact that
| during a solstice the apparent movement of the Sun on the sky
| has a minimum speed, it almost stays in one place. So, for
| the time interval when the Sun both has a minimum speed of
| the apparent motion on the sky and is at a minimum distance
| from us, a term more correct etymologically would have been
| "anchistice", which is still not optimal, because it combines
| a Greek prefix with a Latin suffix. Translating "anchi-" into
| Latin would result in "propistice" (approximately meaning
| "staying close").
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I agree that perihelion is a bad name (or that's my excuse
| for never remembering which it is) but given perihelion
| exists, peristice is a better name.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Peri for close and Ap for far _is_ the existing
| terminology, and has been since Kepler, who in turn created
| them following a pattern set by Ptolemy in the Almagest
| (apogee and perigee are simply transcriptions).
|
| So you are somewhere between 400 to 1800 years late to this
| terminology fight.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Peri- for close and Apo- for far is not the existing
| terminology, in any other words except the derivatives of
| "perigee" and "apogee". You do not say apovision and
| apophone, you say television and telephone.
|
| The fact that "perigee" and "apogee" have been used for
| the first time with this meaning by Ptolemy, who was a
| native Greek speaker (but of Koine, not of classical
| Greek), is not enough to ensure that they have been good
| word choices and that they have been used properly,
| conforming to how they were used by the majority of Greek
| speakers. For any language there are many native speakers
| that have poor knowledge about their own language.
|
| The words "perigee" and "apogee" have not been coined by
| Ptolemy, but they were Greek words that have been in use
| for about a half of millennium before Ptolemy. For
| example "apogee" has already been used by Aristotle.
|
| At the authors from before Ptolemy, both "perigee" and
| "apogee" had been used with their correct expected
| meanings, i.e. the former as an adjective for things that
| go around the world and the latter as an adjective for
| things that go away from the ground.
|
| Ptolemy has been lazy and instead of creating a new pair
| of compound words, well chosen to express in the clearest
| way their intended meaning (i.e. closest and farthest),
| he has just repurposed two existing words, giving to them
| new meanings that were inconsistent with the original
| meanings of their prefixes.
|
| Moreover, the guilt is not entirely of Ptolemy, because
| he had not defined "perigee" and "apogee" with the
| current meaning, because his planetary model did not
| contain elliptic orbits where there are 2 well defined
| extreme points. Ptolemy has used "perigee" and "apogee"
| in a more vague sense, of regions close or distant to
| Earth, where a region where something goes around the
| Earth was understood to be close to Earth and a region
| that can be reached by going away from Earth was
| understood to be distant from Earth. Only after Kepler,
| when "perigee" and "apogee" have been redefined as
| extreme points of an orbit, their original Greek meanings
| have become completely inconsistent with their modern
| definitions.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| A television is not a point on an orbit, but an apogee
| is.
|
| But anyway, you have clearly decided what hill to die on,
| and who am I to kink-shame.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| It's never too late for a true quibbler to correct the
| record.
|
| According to my etymology source, perihelion came out in
| the 1680s, so it's closer to 350 years, not 400
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Kepler coined "perihelium" as latin for "point of an
| orbit closest to the sun" and published it his 1609 book
| "Astronomia nova aitiologetos", so insisting on 1680
| because that's when the spelling with "on" at the end
| arose is some real pedantic quibbling.
|
| Surely it's more tempting to go for "it should be 415" is
| more tempting?
| saghm wrote:
| The second 'sun' part is just making up for the years where it
| doesn't occur on a Sunday.
| thih9 wrote:
| Related, as solstice has latin roots and perihelium greek:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_word
|
| The section with english examples looks especially interesting.
| ColinWright wrote:
| Problem with "Peristice" is that the Solstice comes a couple of
| weeks before the Perihelion, so it "should" be in the order:
|
| Solstice -> Perihelion.
|
| Also, "Peristice" is a bit close (for me) to "Peristalsis" ...
| CalRobert wrote:
| Ah, that does taint it a bit.
| User23 wrote:
| Truly a perineal problem.
| buckleyc wrote:
| Yeah ... 'Happy Sun-sun' is a bit wtf. 'Happy Closest-standing'
| at least alludes to why the time is special. BUT, has lost its
| stellar significance. Periheliostice? Solperistice? Northern
| Kiss?
| psychoslave wrote:
| Well, at least "closest-standing" _is_ suggesting the event
| is related to something. Ellipsis is a perfectly sound
| process when it eludes the appropriate elements out of the
| explicitly uttered expression.
| perihelions wrote:
| Happy solstices and merry perihelions to all!
|
| If anyone's celebrations urgently need very precise planetary
| orbital state vectors, for some reason, you can look up current
| and future ones here:
|
| https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/
| jamieplex wrote:
| Merry Crispness, and Happy Gnu Ears
| digging wrote:
| > So if it's after the middle of December, start wishing people a
| "Happy Solsthelion"
|
| > ... it's a great way to form the ice.
|
| The best part - although perhaps untrue in a room full of HN
| commenters :)
| red_admiral wrote:
| Happy Solsthelion! There's a ritual for it:
| https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/bay-area-secular-solsti...
| ubittibu wrote:
| Due to precession the period is shorter every year. In 2884
| solstice and perhelion will be on the same day.
| hollerith wrote:
| It'd be wrong for me to flag this for wasting my time (so I'm not
| going to).
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