uranus

Uranus, meaning Heaven is the first planet discovered in modern times using a Telescope. Sir William Herschel discovered the planet on 13 March 1781. He called it Georgium Sidus in honour of King George, but since Sidus means star, he then renamed it the Georgian Planet... Wish he'd just left if there, but the rest of the world weren't happy about a new planet with the name of the then British monarch, so it was given a classical name after the Greek god of the Sky.

The stressed syllable in the name is properly the first, antepenultimate syllable, since in Latin the penultimate vowel a is short - "Your-Ah-Nus" - and in an open syllable, and such syllables are never stressed in Latin. The historically incorrect pronunciation - "Your-Ay-Nus", with stress on the second syllable and a "long a" has become very common, perhaps according to scholars through the influence of the related adjective "Uranian" (always pronounced "You-Ray-Knee-An") or the similarly-pronounced name of the element Uranium. Scholars can think what they want, in my opinion, the British love of Double Entendres is a much more likely explanation of the common pronunciation!

p.s. this is Hobson, my big fat ginger tomcat

tomorrow, Neptune