In Rottnest I brought up the subject of the Moon to HHRay. I was taught that the Moon was actually just a name for a natural satellite – Earth’s natural satellite, to be specific, and the “Moons” circling other planets could not be called Moons because they, too, were satellites, and had their own names. HHRay laughed at me.

But now, I have looked into the topic further and guess what – it’s true, but only to an extent. While the proper name for the darn rocks which orbit planets is ‘natural satellite’, they are still frequently called moons (with a lowercase ‘m’). In fact, apparently, the Moon (as in Earth’s natural satellite) does not have any other proper English name other than the Moon. With a ‘the’ and a capital ‘M’.

In my opinion, this is stupid. Why call other satellites moons when they obviously have their own names and their own scientific term – natural satellite. It’s hogging our Moon’s glory.