Submitted by ParticleDetector t3_z63e7m in Showerthoughts
Reddit-User-3000 t1_iy2mi22 wrote
Reply to comment by AxialGem in You see more suns at night than in the daytime. by ParticleDetector
Yeah, “Sun” and “Star that acts like our sun” are technically both correct a according to many dictionaries including the Oxford English Dictionary, and Dictionary.com. However the latter also recognizes “Goblinmode” as a word. As incorrect phrases become common place they are eventually accepted, which is what happened in the case of the Sun. We have named many stars, ours not disclosed. We named our star “The Sun”, just as we named the largest known Star “UY Scuti”. At first calling stars Suns would have been the same as calling them Scutis, but since it has became more widely used and accepted it has become correct according to some reputable sources.
AxialGem t1_iy2nmsz wrote
Definitely. Generalization is one of the most common and well-understood types of semantic change. Even if it wasn't in dictionaries, whether or not a word is commonly used in a certain way is an observable fact lol. But yea, they are right to list that broader usage of course
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