The Man Who Discovered Uranus

William Herschel. Good guy with a telescope, not so much

with the lingo: he called his discovery “Georgium Sidus” 

or “Georgian Star” after George III, but the name didn’t stick. 

In France, where the name of the British king was to be avoided 

at all costs, the planet was known as “Herschel” until the name 

“Uranus” was universally adopted. But that’s the way it goes: 

the biggest mistake you can make is to play a song for a friend 

and expect them to love the lyrics as much as you do. There you are, 

blinking back tears, while your friend is hoping that an airplane 

hits your house so they don’t have to listen to this lugubrious shit 

anymore, though lugubrious is a wonderful word, isn’t it,

because it sounds exactly like someone crying but is also funny, 

like Buick or waffle. Notice I’m talking about single words here,

not phrases like “Christian bachelorette party.” Or “oblong

farincaceous compound,” which is what Henry James actually

called his waffle in a memoir. Oh, Henry, why couldn’t you 

just say “waffle”? No wonder nobody reads you anymore 

except me. Nobody remembers the lyrics to songs, either,

which is why at singalongs people say, “Sweet Caroline, 

something always seemed so something!” and “When I find 

myself in times of something, Mother Mary comes to me” 

as well as “Imagine there’s no something.” You remember

talking with your buddies when you were a teenager, right?

Not the substance of the conversation, though, just the talk.

You were becoming unstuck from your family. You wanted

sex, but you weren’t really sure what it was. The jokes

were pure anarchy, and they took place in a car about

the size of a jail cell and just as far from your parents’ world, 

from school. I think language is more than capable

of looking out for itself, don’t you? I mean, when was 

the last time you looked at the list of synonyms for

baffled? They’re among the best in the English language: 

puzzled, nonplused, discombobulated, flummoxed, stumped, 

fogged, bewildered, buffaloed. Maybe we should just

shut up. To ban the spread of Covid, during the pandemic 

there were signs on Japanese roller coasters asking riders 

to “please scream inside your heart.” Maybe we 

shouldn’t try to take out old words and add new ones.

I mean, you’d feel stupid if you were outside with 

your friends all sweaty and wrung-out after a hootenanny

and someone pointed up to the sky and said, “Look, Herschel.”