My Big Fat Greek Wedding (was: Liguistics/evolution of the English language)

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "jenP_97" <jenP_97 at y...> wrote:
> And since Spanish has much more Latin than English has, there 
> is no way the 90% figure can be sustained. The closest language 
> to Latin (appart from Ecclesiastical Latin) is Italian, and I
> doubt *they* have a 90% figure, either -although I don't know, 
> since I've never seen the figure. I'd say, however, that the 
> invasions of Germanics in the post-Western-Roman-Empire and 
> later the invasions of Turks and Spanish should've introduced 
> new vocabulary into the language.

Now, I confess that while etymology fascinates me, I don't really 
care what the percentage of words is that came into English from 
different sources.  (I do care, however, about existing English not 
being mangled, which it is all the time in today's world.)  What 
this thread is mostly making me think of is a schtick from the 
film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

spoiler 

space 

in 

case 

you 

haven't 

seen 

this 

very

funny

film 

yet

There is a running gag in the film in which the main character's 
father habitually says to people, often to distract them, "Pick a 
word!  Any word, and I will tell you how it comes from Greek!"  When 
one of his daughter's friends gamely says, "Kimono!" he proceeds to 
give her an etymology from Greek!  (A dubious one, to be sure, which 
is where the humor lies.)  After a while, when you saw it coming, it 
caused groans, and yet--it was still pretty funny.  Everyone I know 
also loved the Windex gag.  It made a great kicker at the end.  A 
lovely, affectionate look at Greek family life by a nice Greek girl 
who didn't grow up to marry a nice Greek boy, but her family still 
loves her anyway...

--Barb

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychic_Serpent
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/Barb