I think it's a human defense mechanism to stop feeling bad.
You see it's bad, you know it's bad, but if the subconscious constantly reminds you of that fact, it would be very overwhelming for the conscious mind.
Ackshully, "galaxy" (or rather, "galaxias") means "Milky Way" already, it's just a translation. It was less ambiguous when the only galaxy we could see was the Milky lights that covered a lot of our sky.
Of course, we realize there's more than one galaxy now, so the meanings have diverged.
I'm surprised they didn't carpet bomb him down.