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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 Almages

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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?

adrian_b 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago

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 2y ago
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?