What has happened to Vana'diel? (Spoiler)

[Ransom]

Just gonna point out that "star" is an old timey way of referring to a planet. So, no... it's not stupid or a mistranslation, considering a lot of dated dialog the game uses. It's fits the world of the game perfectly.

I'm sorry, but I reject this explanation too. Think about it: When ancient peoples called the planets they saw in the sky stars it's because they were too primitive to know what they really were, and how they varied from actual stars (save that their position in the sky wasn't 'fixed.') It would never have occurred to them to think of the world beneath their feet as a star, or of the planets in the sky as worlds. Therefore, in universe, either the people of Etheria are not advanced enough to know, in which case they wouldn't call their planet a 'star' because such a thing wouldn't occur to them, or they are advanced enough (which seems to be the case) in which case they wouldn't call the planet a star because they wouldn't want to sound like fricking idiots. Either way, in real life terms this is a translation error born of supposedly intelligent payed translators failing to pay attention to semantics and just stupidly running with the easy (but semantically wrong) direct translation.

[Mirhd]

I'm sorry, but I reject this explanation too. Think about it: When ancient peoples called the planets they saw in the sky stars it's because they were too primitive to know what they really were, and how they varied from actual stars (save that their position in the sky wasn't 'fixed.') It would never have occurred to them to think of the world beneath their feet as a star, or of the planets in the sky as worlds. Therefore, in universe, either the people of Etheria are not advanced enough to know, in which case they wouldn't call their planet a 'star' because such a thing wouldn't occur to them, or they are advanced enough (which seems to be the case) in which case they wouldn't call the planet a star because they wouldn't want to sound like fricking idiots. Either way, in real life terms this is a translation error born of supposedly intelligent payed translators failing to pay attention to semantics and just stupidly running with the easy (but semantically wrong) direct translation.

So you being ignorant of the origin of words and so on means something in a given piece of media is stupid, wrong, or mistranslated? Okay. If I sound snarky it's because I am. I'm also sleep deprived which makes it worse but w/e.

Given that it's clear the ancients are heavily based on ancient Greek culture and such, and the origin of the word planet is greek and meant star...
Asteres planetai or "wandering stars" for what ancient Greeks saw in the sky vs what they thought were asteres aplaneis or "fixed stars" (most Greeks thought Earth was this)... I say again, the use of the word "star" in the game to refer to Etheirys (since you can't even be bothered to get the name of the world right...) is correct.

Not having a large vocab or knowledge of the origin of certain things isn't a crime but for crying out loud, a quick google search lit anywhere could have told you this, come on. Even wikipedia (which isn't a credible source if you're writing a paper or w/e, so don't use it) gets this right.

[Ransom]

So you being ignorant of the origin of words and so on means something in a given piece of media is stupid, wrong, or mistranslated? Okay. If I sound snarky it's because I am. I'm also sleep deprived which makes it worse but w/e.

Given that it's clear the ancients are heavily based on ancient Greek culture and such, and the origin of the word planet is greek and meant star...
Asteres planetai or "wandering stars" for what ancient Greeks saw in the sky vs what they thought were asteres aplaneis or "fixed stars" (most Greeks thought Earth was this)... I say again, the use of the word "star" in the game to refer to Etheirys (since you can't even be bothered to get the name of the world right...) is correct.

Not having a large vocab or knowledge of the origin of certain things isn't a crime but for crying out loud, a quick google search lit anywhere could have told you this, come on. Even wikipedia (which isn't a credible source if you're writing a paper or w/e, so don't use it) gets this right.

Okay, so, a few things...

First, I would say that the ignorant insult is uncalled for since no one can know everything, but I'll let it go since I'm just as guilty in having used words like 'stupid' and 'idiot' when I should have been more careful.

Second, I suppose I should have looked things up first. But I have in fact read up on astronomy at varying time in my life and not one of the books I read gave the definitions for 'fixed star' and 'wandering star' that you give. Not a one of them said that 'planetai' just meant star and was modified by another word to mean either fixed or wandering, they all just defined 'planet' as 'wandering star.' This is also what I was taught in school (which in fairness, sadly, often isn't the best source) and so I went with what I thought was accurate based on what I'd already learned.

Third, yes, I didn't spell Etheirys correctly. My bad.

Fourth, I did acknowledge, all along, that 'star' is correct in antiquated usage. But it just sticks out like a sore thumb in modern usage, which is closer than not to how everyone in the game except Urianger speaks most of the time. I haven't a word to say about Urianger using star in that way, and if everyone talked in a more old-timey manner I wouldn't have a word to say about them using it either. Even accepting the correct old meaning of the word, it just doesn't seem right when inserted into the middle of an otherwise modern sentence.

In any case, I had no intention of upsetting you or anyone else and I apologize if I did.

[Mirhd]

snip

Let me be clear, here. I don't have an issue with you personally (don't know you, after all), but as you acknowledged, you came off poorly, and me, in my already irritable state, took issue. As I said, it isn't a crime to lack knowledge of something; hell, I couldn't remember for sure (insomnia rearing its head, yay)and had to double check to make sure I wasn't imagining it and talking out my butt. However, speaking for myself personally, I (try to, anyway) look into things first before making a claim. That's all.

That said, for the reasons already stated, using "star" in this context works, and Urianger is hardly the only one to speak in a more antiquated fashion throughout the story. Many (nearly everyone, really) using the world "pray" to indicate a plea or request (insert "pray return to the Waking Sands" meme here), for example. There's a lot of antiquated words used throughout the game, and it works given the setting of the world. While I do take issues with certain actual, weird changes (some of Estinien's dialog being reduced or just turned into "..." wtf?), the use of "star" isn't one of them. Again, it actually is used correctly given the setting.