I was fiddling around on Wikipedia just now, and for the heck of it typed just my last name in. And what do I see?
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A mollusc fold? Moi?
I hesitate to look up "Myers". It’ll probably be some magnificent nebula or stellar type. I’ll never live it down.
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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June 18th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Love it lol.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
ah.. it only sounds grim..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columella_(mollusc)
That said.. is citing wikipedia the same as saying “It must be true, a the guy at the pub told me….”
June 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Looks like mostly just the names of places:
* Myers, Montana, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Myers Point, Nova Scotia
* Myers Flat, California
* Myers Park (various)
* Myers, Kentucky, United States
* Fort Myers, Florida, United States
Although there is the Myers theorem of geometry: If Ricci curvature of a complete Riemannian manifold M is bounded below by (n − 1)k > 0, then its diameter is at most π/√k.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Uh-oh! Don’t let PZ hear about that!
June 18th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Your worst fears are realised: PZ Myers is a stellar body, albeit not a magnificent one: he’s an asteroid, Asteroid 153298 Paulmyers to be precise. See http://bluecollarscientist.com/2008/03/25/pz-myers-and-153298-paulmyers/ for the terrible truth.
And Wikipedia makes no mention of you having an asteroid, Phil! Why not? Who do you need to convince/bribe/kill?
Oh, thank FSM for the comment edit feature! I see you have Asteroid 165347 Philplait. Balance is restored, and all’s right with the solar system…
June 18th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I can’t say I would have ever thought it could happen hahahahha.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
“The English surname is early medieval patronymic meaning “son of Mayer”, an occupational name for a mayor. The English surname may also have evolved from “physician” (“mire”, Old French), or “marsh” (“myrr”, Old Norse). The first English public record of the surname was in 1212. The German surname means “steward”/”bailiff”, referring to the town magistrate. Myers is uncommon as a given name. There are many variant spellings.[1][2]”
There are, indeed, many variant spellings…
June 18th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
It’s an infinite universe right?
June 18th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
This link will take you to a illustration of your namesake feature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plait_(gastropod)
Hopefully your newly discovered case of gastro-etymology does not lead to any excessive discomfort.
And the resemblance to the facial features of every Star Trek alien humanoid species cannot be overlooked — I think we need to start calling their facial ridges “Plaits” — so that in the Star Trek canon, species can be at least partially described by the placement, orientation, and number of “Plaits” that appear on thir faces.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:03 am
That’s what comes from ego surfing.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Hell, I get stuck with some Scandinavian ethnic group.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:09 am
No, not related, just calamari.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Myers – meaning: “Son of Mayers”
Mayers – medieval term for mayor.
so PZ, the son of the Mayor, facing down against a fold in a mollusc.
Nope – you’ll never live it down.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Well, we’re all related if you go back far enough. It’s just really embarrassing to have to be fairly closely related to Jenny McCarthy and Ken Ham.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:31 am
Down here in the antipodes, I’d pronounce “plait” like “platt” (both surname and hair knot) but I know you pronounce your name as spelled, sounds-like “plate”.
Seemed as good a place as any to reveal this pointless fact.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Oh for Juno’s sake, if I could only afford to ship off to TAM7, I would grab BA, aka Dr. Phil “anal dickhead”” Plait by the shoulders, shake him senseless and say, “Dude! It’s okay! Scienceblogging will always belong to the here and now, but your backyard, the Cosmos? That stuff is forever!”
That being said, the sky is my home, and I’m only too curious to know what he has planned for July 20th this year.
Also, I know BA has a lot on his plait, but last year, about twice a month, he did a live video chat which I thoroughly enjoyed. Any plans or hopes of resurrecting that kind of activity?
June 19th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Boy was I shocked when I looked up Rogue.
What were my blog parents thinking.
I’ll never live it down.
I guess I’ll just have to live it up.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Myer – Department store in Australia
June 19th, 2009 at 1:53 am
LOL @Rogue
@GuanoLad – me too, here in the UK. I wasn’t sure at first how to say “plait”, as it’s what little schoolgirls do to their hair. Ironically, there’s a reverse case where Leftpondians call tartan “plaid”.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Phil, when you discover a new black hole, name it after Prof. Myers, then it’ll be even.
(Apologies again to Mr. Myers, whom I really admire.)
June 19th, 2009 at 3:58 am
From German Meyer, from Hebrew מֵאִיר (me’ír), “‘illuminating’”).
June 19th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Well, actually, one of the etymologies of “Myers” is actually the word for a, eh, vibrant hot spot of biodiversity. Or in other words, a swamp! From wikipedia:
“Meyers, a variant surname spelling of Myers, is of both English and German surname origin. The German surname refers to a town magistrate. The English surname may mean “physician” (from “mire”, Old French, or “marsh” (from “myrr”, Old Norse}”
June 19th, 2009 at 5:38 am
You know, Phil, this is Wikipedia. I wonder if PZ went in and did some fiddling of his own with the edit feature…?
June 19th, 2009 at 5:39 am
So PZ is actually the primordial swamp? Who knew!
June 19th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Mr. Plait,
The description you circled sounds downright naughty to me.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:58 am
…no, I’m thinking of Messier.
(Who knows, maybe the same root??)
June 19th, 2009 at 6:04 am
What the matter? Are you an evolution denier? Of course you are related to PZ! Hell you can be a creationist and STILL be related to PZ.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Don’t even get me started. My last name is from what those castanets are made from – you know – the kind Spanish dancers of a certain type use? And my last name has only one known (reasonable … ???) anagram – a common colloquial name for a trash receptacle.
There ARE worse things than being lexicographically related to Dr. Myers.
JC
June 19th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Far as I’m concerned, Myers is rum.
June 19th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Of all the groups of scientists, astronomers must be the most craving of the lot. Why? Simply because unlike biologists, whose specimens are readily available for dissecting and study, astronomers can only gaze at the things they love most. A newly discovered near-transparent frog, some microscopic slides of amoebas, a set of tweezers, and biologists are off.
But our unfortunate astronomers, due to biological constraints and current technological limits, can neither touch the stars nor fondle them in loving care (as if!). They long to make love with a neutron star, cajole with a black hole, play mahjong with a gamma ray burst and snog a supernova. These things shoulda’ been possible already, damn it!!! And all they can do is watch through telescopes, from far far far far away, the things that they wish to have hanky-panky with, in close proximity. *Sigh*
So, Phil, I understand your itch.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Phil, do we have to install parental-locks to prevent you from always Googling and Wikipedia’ing yourself?
June 19th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Play “Outreach”, you’ll feel better.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I think you and PZ were separated at birth!
June 19th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Richard Dawkins will have to rewrite “The Ancestors Tale” to accommodate this new data.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Dang, I went to all that trouble to Wiki, Myers (about 30 seconds) and everyone beat me to the punch,,,
I’ll just have to stick to my innate disgust factor over squishy, mushy bio stuff.
Hot stars are so much cooler,,,
GAry 7
June 19th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Being related to PZ myers??
No shame in that.
@ 35 Gary Ansorge :
Hot stars are so much cooler,,,
No, they’re not!
Give me a Mira or a Hinds’s Crimson star or T Leporis or Betelgeux anyday!
June 19th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Phil, most definitely you are related to PZ Myers. After all, both of you
1. were created by God,
2. came from Adam and Eve,
3. were throwing dirty snowballs at each other inside the Ark,
4. had siesta after throwing Joseph into the pit,
5. were canoodling with Egyptian kids during Moses’ time,
6. had ancestors who crossed the Red Sea, after it was parted by Bruce,
7. threw Job into the sea, Job being neither an atheist nor a skeptic,
8. had ancestors who were sleeping at the Sermon on the Mount,
9. had ancestors who had crucial roles in the Crusade mess hall,
10.
a. had ancestors who tried to jump into the water after the Mayflower left earlier than the intended schedule, or
b. had ancestors whose sauerkraut recipe lives up to this day, or,
c. had ancestors who attacked the British regiment in the Battle of Isandlwana.
June 19th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Stone Age, you might want to go see Year 1. You might enjoy it.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Ah, Adam and Eve, I remember them well. Eve was such a compliant lass, nice but not near as lusty as Lilith(now, THERE was the first Hottie and something of a dominatrix, which is why she couldn’t get along with Adam) and Adam, Ah, what can I say. He was something of a shmuck, always getting confused between Eve and the Sheep,,,”Adam, what are you doing with that sheep? Helping it over the fence???”.
Well, after a few decades(they thought it was a lot longer, because they measured time by lunar phases), they finally caught on and along came Cain and Able. What can I say about them? Able was a bit slow on the uptake(I think Adam used him for a foot ball a couple of times) and Cain was just plain mean, a real bully. You probably remember some of his school yard descendants.
Ever notice how Genesis never named the Daughters of Eve? That’s ’cause they ran off with me,,,
GAry 7
PS: ,,,and now you know where the likes of Plait and Myers came from,,,
June 19th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Surely it’s just a coincidence that, in Zenna Henderson’s Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, the alien children say that when they want to fly they “plait the twishers.”
Google the phrase to check me.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I’m pretty good in this department, my name means “son of a man from a place of honor and victory”. Hard to live up to, possibly.
How is it that every time I see this I read it as “ghastly pod”? PZ have to understand that we can’t all love his kin!
Ah, so Meyers is reading “Myr” in swedish! Yes, we have for example Myregård (old variant of “marsh estate”).
That must be The New Garyspels, and then some. I didn’t know Ansorge stood for “Ancient” though, but there you go…
June 19th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Hi Charles Boyer @ #38,
How about Land of the Lost?
~~~
To Eric TF Bat @ #5,
All’s well that ends well.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Hi Phil, just a suggestion
,
THE LIFETIME PLAITINUM AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE
I don’t know where The Professor gets the energy. I agree he is stellar. Have you seen his Dungeon?