this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
135 points (97.9% liked)

Showerthoughts

38849 readers
1104 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 13 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Dojan@pawb.social 21 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I know this one.

There was a decent amount of debate over the name for Uranus. There was already a naming tradition present, and some argued it should be broken. I think one suggestion was like “George’s Star”, thank fuck that didn’t stick.

Eventually it was settled on being named after the Greek sky deity Ouranos, which is the father of Kronos (Saturn in Latin), who is the father of Zeus (Jupiter in Latin), who is the father of Ares (Mars), who is the spouse-brother of Aphrodite (Venus), and sibling to Hermes (Mercury).

Old astronomers had big old hardons for Greco-Roman mythology.

Naturally the father-of father-of scheme didn’t stick since Poseidon (Neptune) and Hades (Pluto) are brothers of Zeus.

Eris (Discordia) is named after the deity that sparked the Trojan war. She wasn’t invited to a wedding on account of being a party pooper, and in true party-pooper fashion she sowed discord by throwing in a golden apple “for the fairest”, which Aphrodite, Athena (Minerva), and Hera (Juno) promptly started fighting over.

It’s thus quite appropriate that the planet that caused much debate in the astronomical community, leading to a change in definition of what a planet is, and Pluto being classified a dwarf planet, is named after her.

[–] PunnyName@lemmy.world 34 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

It'll have a new name in 2620

§polierFry: Oh, man, this is great! Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus.
[He laughs.]
Leela: I don't get it.
Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all..
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Farnsworth: Urectum.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago

Astronomers had pretty much all agreed on the name “Uranus” by 1850, and the first spectrographic studies began in 1861—so yeah.

[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 15 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

One of nature's happy little coincidences.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Now I'm picturing Bob Ross painting Uranus.

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Didn't know Bob Ross did body painting. What episode is that?

It's somewhere on Pornhub, probably

[–] s@piefed.world 10 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, probably

[–] Sarcasmo@piefed.social 4 points 9 hours ago

He who smelt it didn't name it.

[–] Zier@fedia.io 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

People always pronounce it wrong, it's your-ah-nohse, sometimes your-ah-nuss. People always mispronounce Neanderthal as well. It's ne-ander-tall.

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I hear it pronounced Urine-us more than not lately. It’s not better.

I'm glad scientists are planning to change it to Urectum in the year 2620, finally put an end to this confusion. They should do it sooner if you ask me.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social -1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I think when they named Uranus, English wasn't invented yet to have called the butthole an anus. 🤷‍♂️

They also probably didn't know it was a planet.