: Re: Potential confusion: referring to home planet as "Earth" I'm writing a science fiction story and it's based in another galaxy, colonised by humans originally on a geographically equivalent "Earth".

@Ravi5107385

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Although it's been answered already (and it's a good answer), I'd recommend you reconsider your chosen course of action and think about the implications.

First of all, it would be highly unlikely for people who were originally from "our" Earth to only mention "Earth" using the Latin phrase. All their history books and reference materials - anything to do with Earth - are likely to use the word Earth.

Second, the reader is not going to associate "Solum" with "Earth", unless you explicitly mention this linkage to them. In the example you've given, it just sounds like Solum and Pexus are any old planets, and there is no linkage between the two.

In summary, you're overly confusing things for yourself and the reader. It is far more likely that "Earth" will still be called "Earth" (or some derivative close enough for the reader to know it's Earth), but the current planet will adopt its own name. If they referred to it as "New Earth", over time this could shorten "Newurth", or "Nurth".

You're better off keeping things simple and clear for yourself and your readership.

A final point related to what you've written: if the characters on this new planet have no first hand knowledge of Earth, it's highly unlikely they would make any reference at all to a comparison between "New Earth" and "Earth" as you've done with regards to trees/gravity and so on. The comparison you're making comes across as if someone from Earth is writing the story or is our point of view, and unless that is the case, you are breaking my sense of realism as a reader. I know I'm from Earth, I know I'm reading a story about somewhere far away that's different. Let me work it out through inference, rather than have you tell me flat out.

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