In conjuring up a new category of planets to be known as “plutons” to tidy away Pluto and its cousins, the International Astronomical Union has attracted a hail of criticism.

My colleague Geoff Brumfiel reports here on the angry reaction of one geologist who studys a type of rock formation already known as a “pluton”. This geologist was concerned at the term being hijacked, and he’s not the only one upset.

My dinner companions tonight included some (very tired) members of the planet definition committee. They said that they’d received hundreds of emails over the past few days from geologists complaining about the use of “pluton” in the proposed planet definition. Many of these emails, they noted, came from Australia. Is someone over there running a campaign?

Another problem has emerged in translation. The french name for Pluto is — you’ve guessed it — Pluton. The definition committee thought this linguistic borrowing would give the pluton label special appeal for French-speaking astronomers, but apparently some object.

All this leads to speculation that tomorrow’s revised definition, whatever other changes it contains, will include a replacement word for “pluton”.