this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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How the Arctic and Antarctic were named
Cartographer 1: This cold continent has huge and super dangerous bears, how do we warn people?
Cartographer 2: Let's call it ThePlaceWithBears! What about this even colder one on the opposite end?
Cartographer 1: Does it have any bears?
Cartographer 2: Come to think of it, there's literally no bears here! ThePlaceWithoutBears it is!
Cartographer 1: Boom! Quittin' time!
funny but Antarctica doesn’t mean "the place with no bears", it means "not the place with bears"
which imo is funnier
I think it's "opposite the place with bears"?
This is actually slightly inaccurate. It wasn’t called that because of no polar bears vs polar bears.
it was called that because the Greek used stars for navigation. Ursa Major (the constellation which is north) is literally called the big bear (Ursa = Bear). So the northern land became the sort of bear land. And the southern land became the not bear land. It’s a funny coincidence that it ended up matching polar bear ranges.
Which is ridiculous because it clearly has ant in the name not bear. You've got the Arctic and you've got the Arctic made for ants.
But I don’t think there are ants there either. Or are they bear-ants? Like really small bears or really big ants?
Yeah, bears like to chew on ants, so the ants kicked them out when they took the place over.
Funny story, Antarctica used to be called Australia until the kangeroos stole the name
Makes sense