OpenGeofiction
Elements- The building blocks behind the OGF World
Posted by zhenkang on 27 February 2017 in English. Last updated on 28 February 2017.While doing my Chemistry homework, I was thinking of the elements on the Periodic Table. I was thinking, who discovered elements like hydrogen, oxygen etc… and who organised the periodic table? (Dmitri Mendeleev of Syria? )
Discussion
Comment from trabantemnaksiezyc on 27 February 2017 at 12:42
Not really - after all OGF is a world closely resembling reality. We should keep the current names to elements.
Comment from zhenkang on 27 February 2017 at 13:22
But some elements like polonium, named after Poland, and is there are Pluto, neptune and uranus outside our world? Some new elements are named after places in the real world which does not exist in the OGF.
Comment from martinum4 on 27 February 2017 at 13:40
I don’t see much of an issue with keeping the original names, we all map at openGEOfiction, while “Geo”, afaik comes from the Greek world for “Earth”, so you’d have to find a new word for that too…. Maybe your examples are named after different things here, Polonium named a city named Polus, Uranium is obviously named after the Uraneros Mountains where it was found first, the possibilities are endless, just make something up in your head ;)
Comment from Yuanls on 27 February 2017 at 17:09
We can keep the names of the elements the same or undisclosed. After all, aside from a few dozen common elements like iron, nickel, copper, oxygen etc, there is little mention of anything else. So I don’t think we should bother changing them.
Comment from compdude on 27 February 2017 at 18:02
It would be probably more confusing for people if we had different names for these elements. People are more used to their actual names.
Comment from wangi on 27 February 2017 at 18:03
Get mapping! :)
Comment from Sarepava on 27 February 2017 at 18:48
I mean…it’s not really a priority. Has anybody had to write about an element obviously named after something irrevocably in the real world? Yes, perhaps invent OGF replacements for influential scientists such as Einstein, Newton, Rutherford etc, but this is the sort of thing for 20 years’ time when the map might be complete.
Comment from histor on 27 February 2017 at 19:07
Indeed I see no problem with the conventional names for the elements. In Cordoba / Latina will be named the streets of a great urbanisation instead of “Calle 1” to “Calle 92” with the names of the elements in her natural row.
Comment from Myrcia on 27 February 2017 at 20:51
In my many hours of mapping and writing about my mapping I have never once thought about chemical elements and whether they need new names.
Should I not say that Myrcia has tamac streets because its name comes from Tarmacadam which is named after John Loudon McAdam who didn’t exist in OGF world?
We named the days of the week after Greek and Roman and Viking gods and goddesses so are we right to use those and not an entirely fictional system?
It seems intensely silly to be going into this level of detail for a project primarily focused around realistic mapping and nation building.
Comment from Pawl on 27 February 2017 at 21:16
This is the tip of a very large and messy iceburg. If we’re going to stop using words whose origins are specific to real-world history, we would probably have to stop using real-world languages altogether! For example, unless RW England and OGF Ingerland shared almost exactly the same mix and chronology of Celtic, Latin, German, Scandinavian, French and other influences, the Ingerish language would not, could not, be the same as modern English. So why “OGFize” the names of elements but not everything else? Martinum4’s idea of alternative explanations (if you need to explain them) sounds good to me.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 27 February 2017 at 21:51
Its silly to have real names in a fictional world? Or silly to have fictional names in a fictional world? Silliness is really at whatever level you want to make it. It is a very big iceberg when you look under the water, like Pawl says.
This is fiction. When it works best, its based around creativity. My rule would be, if its creative, let it stand. Keep the english names of the elements, make up some explanations for them. Make up some other names for them in other languages, make up that languge, map a science institute where people debate these things in that language, or in nihonish (Nh) and let Dr Moscov (Mc) fromTennessine (Ts) be in charge of the main research institute in the city of Rutherford (Rf). Let creativity rule.
Comment from Myrcia on 27 February 2017 at 22:08
I maintain that yes, this is silly but that silly is not necessarily a derogatory term when I use it.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 27 February 2017 at 22:29
It is maybe slightly silly that Myrcia still has tarmac when it should probably have switched to BST a while ago? or is it just that it call’s its roads ‘tarmac’ (named after the Ionadàlban engineer John Loudon MacKenzie of course) when they’re not actually tarmac.
And just to mention that not everyone maps at open.GEO.fiction. For example, most folk in in Ionadàlba and Shadze-Ma see some relationship between that website and a revered christic saint (I guess that one is a bit silly, get mapping etc.ect).