Poor Pluto

Pluto has just been downgraded to a dwarf planet and is no longer one of nine. Poof, there are only eight planets in our solar system now. Poor Pluto.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with the decision over and against its alternative, which was to count Charon, Zena, and a whole bunch of other icy things orbiting the Sun. Pluto wasn't big enough to clear everything out of its orbit (it crosses Neptune's) and was just too small.

The funny thing is of course that yesterday it was a planet. In other words, the category of planet is a human construct in this instance. The difference between our planets and the many suns out there is not a human construct, nor are certain key differences between Pluto and Neptune that have constituted the different classifications.

But the name planet is a human sign whose definition might just as easily have come out something different. We humans created the planets today.

And since as a son of Adam I can make names too, I will continue to refer to Pluto as a planet. I'll be selling Schenck dictionaries on Amazon so you can know what I really mean. But of course someone will have to learn your language and mine in order to write it in yours.