Alright, so, the language buffs out there will most likely already know most of these words have roots in the Hellenic language, and most words must at least sound familiar to many Hellenists. Perhaps a better title would have been 'Modern English words the average Joe on the street might not know were derived from Greek', but the title was long as it was, so I think we're good. With that out of the way, the point of this post: we use with roots in the ancient Hellenic language almost daily. Many concepts from science, politics, medicine and society are derived from ancient Hellenic roots, and the names often stuck. Here is a list of a few common, interesting, funny, or simply obvious ones, this image courtesy of Facebook, so if you made this, please let me know so I can properly link back to you and give you major thanks.


Wikipedia says that, in a typical English dictionary of 80,000 words, which corresponds very roughly to the vocabulary of an educated English speaker, about 5% of the words are borrowed from Greek directly, and about 25% indirectly (if one counts modern coinages from Greek roots as Greek). Seeing as it's Wikipedia, I'm not at all sure those numbers are correct, but it is something to think about, at least.

PS: Tomorrow, it's back to actual, in-depth posts, but today, I'm feeling a good bit under the weather. Sickness trumps any attempt at coherent writing, I'm afraid. Check back tomorrow for something more than this. Thank you!