Viewers of the movie First Man, about the Gemini space program, may be surprised to learn that within National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the name Gemini is pronounced more like JEM-i-nee. Gemini is the Latin word for twin, and the source of the Spanish word for twins, gemelos. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Gemini Pronunciations”
If you’re watching the new movie First Man with Ryan Gosling, you may be surprised at the way that they pronounce the name of the space program, the one that’s spelled G-E-M-I-N-I.
How do you say it? Most people say Gemini. If your sun sign is a Gemini, that’s what you say. But in the space program, they pronounce it Gemini, which confuses people. They do.
Yeah, and apparently in 1965, UPI, which was the wire service back then, ran an article that said, regardless of what the dictionary says, the Federal Space Agency’s official pronunciation for its new man-in-space program, Gemini, is Gemini, as in Gemini Cricket.
Yeah, that became their standard. They were aware of the difference. They were aware that the other pronunciation was out there. But they settled on Gemini and stuck with it, and it’s become kind of a watchword inside the space program.
If you say Gemini, then people know that you’re at least a little bit of an insider. Right, right. Somebody described it as sort of a shibboleth if you say it, Gemini.
Yeah. But, of course, it was named Gemini because it was a two-person space capsule. That’s right, and Gemini is the twins.
Right. And a relative of the Spanish word, gemelos, meaning twins.
Oh, nice. Nice connection there.
