Social Question

ragingloli's avatar

Is it time for the atom to be given a new name?

Asked by ragingloli (52277points) March 31st, 2022

Its current name is patently inaccurate, since the the word “atom” is derived from the Greek word for “uncuttable”.
As every schoolboy knows, provided your school was not free, the atom is made of smaller more elementary particles, and is very much “cuttable”.
What replacement name do you propose?

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13 Answers

Jeruba's avatar

How about monad?

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

If you don’t like @Jeruba‘s suggestion, what about calling it George?

kritiper's avatar

NO! Changing the name only serves to confuse people.

Forever_Free's avatar

lets call it ragingloli

HP's avatar

The loli

filmfann's avatar

Let’s rename them as Farts.
You can cut farts, but if you do, no one in the area will be happy.

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

I would assume that the same backlash would occur when Pluto was made a dwarf planet.

Samantha4One's avatar

No point, we just have to live with it… Changing it now after so long will only create more confusion. Also the meaning of the word doesn’t really have to be related to it’s function.

zenvelo's avatar

The Greek word still makes sense. Once you cut an atom into its constituent parts, they no longer comprise the element they were before you parsed it.

elbanditoroso's avatar

I’d go for a ‘mota’ (backwards atom).

In Spanish, ‘mota’ means ‘speck’ – and that seems relevant.

flutherother's avatar

You could argue that the atom still isn’t “cuttable” in the sense the ancient Greeks knew and if you want to update the definition of “cuttable” then you can update the definition of “atom” which is simpler than inventing a new word.

LostInParadise's avatar

Molecular unit, which we can use to create a new word – molunit. Although I am perfectly content with atom for the reasons given by @zenvelo

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