Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Great Bear, rather than Big Bear, in these parts; and often the
Plough, and occasionally Charles's Wain.

For some values of "English".

I think that is chiefly American. They would be better known in England
as The Plough and maybe The False Plough.

Ray O'Hara:

Wrong.  The Big Dipper (or the Plough in foreign countries) consists
of 7 bright stars (8 if you count Alcor) forming *part* of the Great
Bear, specifically the bear's hips and tail.  In the reference I have
at hand[1], the complete bear is drawn using 12 other stars that form
the head and legs.

It is true that the 7 stars making up the Little Dipper are the same
ones typically drawn as making up the Little Bear, though.  I can't
actually see an animal shape in them at all, and I imagine the Little
Bear was so named just because it was smaller than the nearby Great Bear.

[1] It's necessary to refer to a specific source because the joining
of the brighter stars into shapes that relate to the constellation's
name has no official status.  Today's official constellations are just
regions of the sky bounded by arbitrary lines drawn so that each one
*includes* the stars traditionally considered as making up that
particular shape.  For example, in round numbers Ursa Major's boundary
starts at right ascension 14h05m, declination +49°; it then goes N
to +55°, W to 14h20m, N to +62°, E to 13h35m, N to +63°, E to 12h05m
(all numbers estimated by eye from the maps in my book), and so on for
about 20 more sides making up the complete boundary.

My reference is "A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets", 1964, by
Donald H. Menzel, published by Houghton Mifflin in the Peterson Field
Guide series.  However, the constellation figures are credited to
H.A. Rey's "The Stars: A New Way to See Them", copyright 1952, 1962.

American English, perhaps, but not UK English.

Yes, unless you're looking at Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.  :-)

izzy