this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
436 points (98.7% liked)

Science Memes

19822 readers
3283 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 53 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Sputnik is a fun word in Russian. It comes from the prefix s- (with), the suffix -nik (one who), and the root -put- (path). A sputnik, then, is someone or something who travels a path with you, and it is also a model of train (because it travels with the tracks) and a word for spouse (because they travel your life's path with you).

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago

I'm pretty sure the model of train is a proper name and it's named after the satellite. I don't think I would describe any train as a literal "sputnik" of the rails.

Also Russian is full of composite words like that. "Explorer" in russian would be "исследователь" (issledovatel') - ис (completely) + след (trace/footstep) + оват (make, imbue) + ель (he who). Literally it would be "he who makes (places) completely (covered in) footsteps"

[–] xzinik@feddit.cl 6 points 23 hours ago

i find that incredibly fascinating and also so emotional like pure poetry in just one word, neat

[–] GargleBlaster@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

In (some parts of) Germany a Sputnik is a sausage with a slice of cheese in it, wrapped in bacon, pierced by a toothpick and baked in the oven.

Was looking for a picture of one and found none. So now I'm contemplating if I'm going insane.

[–] Mantzy81@aussie.zone 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Those parts might be centred around your family kitchen, much like the northern lights

[–] GargleBlaster@feddit.org 1 points 13 hours ago

Probably, was in a small village in the Swabian Alps

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The Russians call Germans "nemtsy" or "the mute ones" because allegedly the Germans were the first ethnic group the Russians encountered who didn't speak their language and so they assumed they couldn't speak at all. The sausage sounds delicious, though, so maybe they just weren't speaking because they were eating cheese-stuffed bacon-wrapped sausages.

[–] flora_explora@beehaw.org 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That anecdote doesn't make any sense though. Like who are "the Russians" and why didn't they have prior knowledge of other ethnic groups before? And "the Germans" is a very recent group of people that isn't ethnic at all.

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

By "Germans" I mean "the early Germanic peoples who occupied the region that became Germany" and "Russians" I mean "the early Slavic peoples who occupied the region that became Russia". I kinda just assumed folks would understand the modern federal German state didn't exist when early Slavs first encountered other ethnic groups and could work backwards from there.

[–] flora_explora@beehaw.org 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

In times of authoritarian and fascist uprising, I think we should be careful what ideas we spread. The telling of a "German" or "Russian" people that are "natural" ethnicities is not far from right wing ideology. Why would you even use "Germans" and "Germanic people" synonymously? That's anachronistic and they don't really have anything to do with each other. Some Germanic people also lived where Ukraine is now btw.

It isn't even clear if "Germanic peoples" existed as a distinct group of people:

Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic".[3] Some scholars call for the term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence.[4] Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity.

Oh, and the Nazis did synonymize both Germans and Germanic peoples as well:

The publishing of Tacitus's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period, such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism. For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about the early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by the Nazis. During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship.

To synonymize "Russians" with "Slavic people" is also wrong, as Slavic people where a diverse group of very different people living in a different regions of the world. We also don't know where the early Slavic people lived exactly.

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 1 points 7 hours ago

Sure. What words am I allowed to use when relating this anecdote in the future without being called a nazi? A simple blocklist and allowlist is the easiest format for me.

To expand a bit, it comes from a Proto-Slavic word which was used for foreigners in general, but mostly to refer to Germans. It's also why most (all?) Slavic languages have basically the same word for German(s)/Germany, similar-sounding to the modern Russian one.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Is it a specific sausage or any sausage because no reason I'm not hungry

[–] Mantzy81@aussie.zone 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)
[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

i'm like constantly stoned dude. mention food and i want to eat it.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Limerance@piefed.social 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If the "pa" part of "companion" comes from path it's basically exactly the same: "s" and "co" are both "with" and "nik" and "ion" are similar noun endings.

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

If the “pa” part of “companion” comes from path

It doesn't though, it comes from French compagnon/compaignon and then Latin com (with) + panis (bread). It probably originally meant "someone with whom you share bread (eat together)".

And actually, looking at wiktionary, Old English had a word "ġefēra" (with the same meaning) which is constructed very similarly to "спутник": ge ('with', still the same prefix in german e.g. ‎Gebrüder) + fera ('to go'/'to fare', e.g. in seafaring)

[–] CombatWombat@feddit.online 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I might translate it that way in some contexts, but if you told me Lewis and Clark were "sputniks" I'd assume you meant they got married in secret, rather than that they were explorers.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Especially now that I found out it involves a bacon cheese sausage somehow

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's strange they called it a 'companion' of any sort since it was the sole first satellite in space

[–] RustySharp@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

As in, a companion to the planet.

Moons are satellites.

Satellite: from Latin satellitem (nominative satelles) "an attendant" upon a distinguished person; "a body-guard, a courtier; an assistant"

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Fascinating, so it means 🇨🇿 spoluputovník or 🇩🇪 Mitwanderer