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Words of Greek origin, whether or not constructed under the influence of science or authentic, are generally recognizable, for example words such as "psychology" or "biography". Yet there are also words in English that we think are typically English, but which also derive from the Greek language. Because what about for instance the word "place"? This word comes from the Greek adjective πλατύς (other Basic Modern Greek forms πλατιά, πλατύ) which means "broad." An important word in Greek is "η πλατεία" which means square, and this word also comes from this πλατύς, albeit from the feminine form that used to be πλατεία and has become a noun of η πλατεία (οδός). The plane-tree, ο πλάτανος, is a very important tree that provides a lovely shady spot on many a Greek square. And although not in agreement, there are linguists who believe that this tree also owes its name to this adjective and is so called because of its "broad" crown. But even the name Plato in Greek Πλάτων can be traced back to πλατύς. His real name was actually Aristokles (Αριστοκλής) but due to his broad forehead (and chest reportedly) he was called Plato. There is a beautiful expression in Modern Greek which is not sure where it comes from. It is the expression: χαιρέτα μου τον πλάτανο. Literally translated "greet the plane-tree on my behalf" and I do not want to deny you the most common interpretations about the origin. Incidentally, the meaning and use is another, namely "we can just kiss the plane-tree goodbye" (if we change μου into μας)
By the way: isn’t it funny that the transmissive meaning is equal to the literal translation in English but not in Greek, but anyhow. The first and perhaps the most obvious explanation is the following. As described above, the square and the plane-tree are very important for a Greek village because this is the place where people meet. If now 2 Greek fellow villagers met each other abroad and one of them would return to the village, this was said as a farewell greeting by the one who left behind. Gradually this expression would increasingly have received this negative meaning, since return was not always possible for the Greek living abroad.
Another explanation refers to the μεντρεσές (mendreses, a school where the sacred writings of Islam are studied) that stood opposite the Tower of the Winds in the Plaka in Athens and of which only the gate is still standing.
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This school that was built in 1721, after Greece became independent, has been given another function namely that of prison. In addition to ordinary criminals, this prison also imprisoned political prisoners. In the courtyard there was a plane tree on which the sentenced to death were hanged. The lucky ones who were released would have used this expression when they left prison. The plane tree was struck by lightning in 1915 and 4 years later the prison was razed to the ground..


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The Fates are goddesses who determine the destiny of life. The Greek name for these goddesses is οι Μοίρες (from the singular η μοίρα - fate). These were in Greek mythology:
η Κλωθώ - Klotho, she spins the thread of life of man
η Λάχεση - Lachesis, she who allocates, she determines the length
η Άτροπος - Atropos, she who cuts the thread of life

The name Κλωθώ comes from the verb κλώθω - "to spin" and η κλωστή - "the thread, the yarn" and these words still exist in that sense in Modern Greek. Λάχεση comes from the verb λαχαίνω which means “to come about, to happen” and this verb still exists. Now you mainly come across the "it" form of this verb and as you will see it is an irregular verb in the forms I show here, namely: μου έλαχε – “it happened to me ..." or όπου λάχει which means" just somewhere". Άτροπος comes from α- which means "not, un-" and the verb τρέπω which means "turn" or "turn". Her name means "inevitable, unchangeable". But now the name itself or rather the noun, η μοίρα. Η μοίρα in the old sense means "the piece / part that belongs to everyone". This word has a positive and a negative side. In that negative direction the word μόρος - "bad fate" was born, of which, according to Babiniotis, the Latin "mors" - "death" came and words such as the French "mourir", the German "Mord" and the English "murder". The word μοίρα has the same "grandparents" as the words το μέρος meaning "part" but also "place" and the word η μερίδα - "portion" and although the portions in Greek restaurants are "murderous", I hold that this is in the positive direction points out.

Most of us are familiar with the terms Greek alphabet, Roman numerals (III, V, IX) and Arabic numerals (3, 5, 9). But many will not know that there are Greek numbers. This is a number system that uses the Greek alphabet with a quotation mark to distinguish it from the letters. The oldest Greek number system is also referred to as Attic numbers (or Herodian numbers). The system is already very old and probably dates from the 7th century BC. It was replaced from around the 4th century BC by the system with which the Modern Greek still indicates the ordinal numbers today. Incidentally, New Greek usually uses Arabic numerals just like us. Since the Greek alphabet did not have enough letters (24) to be able to display all numbers, tens and hundred (27 in total, see diagram below), 3 old letters, b from an earlier period of Greek and already in decay had been added to the system (the digamma for 6, the goppa for 90 and the sampi for 900).
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The special relationship between numbers and letters appeared recently when I read the following in the (Greek) book "conversations with Aristotle": We know very well that if we divide the circumference of any circle by its diameter, the quotient is always equal to the number 3.14 which number is represented by the symbol “pi”. If we put this in a formula, the following is true:
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This mathematical formula is correct for every circle. From a linguistic point of view, however, there is also a remarkable side, because if we now replace every letter of the Greek words from this formula with the numbers according to the above scheme, we get:
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and now, when we then put the totals in the place of the words,
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then we get the same "outcome" or is this what we call a circular reasoning?

The Olympic Gods such as Zeus (Ζεύς but also called Δίας), Aphrodite (Αφροδίτη), Poseidon (Ποσειδώνας) to name a few, have become known to us mainly through their Latin (Roman) names, namely Jupiter, Venus and Neptune. In astronomy, astronomy, we also come across these names as names for planets. For example, we know the planet Mars.

Mars was the god of war to the Romans in the image of the Greek god of war Ares (Άρης).
The Greeks use their "own" mythological names to designate the planets, so the planet Venus is called Αφροδίτη, the planet Mars is called Άρης.
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The word η τάξη (ee táxee) means "the order", "the class" and "the class" and be careful not to confuse it with το ταξί (to taxéé) which means "the taxi, the cab" (useful tip: most means of transport are neuter, so το) and pay attention to the accent when pronouncing!
The preposition εν means "in" and in Modern Greek you can only find it in fixed expressions from older periods of Greek, in so-called "petrified expressions" such as for example εν πτήσει - in flight (from η πτήση - de flight). I deliberately gave an extra example to show that "something" happens to, here, the feminine noun, namely the change in the output from -η to -ει. This happened because behind the preposition "εν" came a 3rd case, the dativus, which resulted in this change with this type of nouns. Incidentally, this 3rd case no longer exists in Modern Greek.
That the 3rd case no longer exists can also be seen in the spelling; possibly due to the merging sound of the "ν" (from εν) and the "τ" (from τάξη) that is heard as "nd", one has started to "hear" this as one word and also to write as such .... ....
The word is used a lot and you come across it all in one sentence. The translation then depends on the context of the sentence and can vary from "ok, well, you hear" etc. locally you can also hear 'ντάξει' (daxie) 'νταξ' (dax)
Well, ok then.
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