Laughing with Di – January 2020

January, named for the Roman god of beginnings, Janus, is the start of a new decade, 2020. This first month’s astrological sign, Capricorn, is a Greek word for the god Pan, the goat. Even the word “decade” has an etymology from French, Latin and ancient Greek.
Let’s have a laugh…
Classic languages have been mixed together forever. I have tried to memorize the Greek alphabet but unlike the simple alphabet we use, with one syllable letters, the Greeks used epsilons, lambdas, omicrons and omegas. And, how do you pronounce “xi”?
The modern English alphabet, derived from Latin, has only one three-syllable letter, the double-u (or “beebeedoo” but that’s a whole other story). Our children easily recite bee, cee, dee, el, em and en. The Greeks spoke using letters like beta, gamma, zeta, tau and phi. Ancient Greeks and Romans had gods dually named Zeus/Jupiter, Poseidon/Neptune, Ares/Mars.
We can read volumes retelling the fates of Apollo and Daphne, Cupid and Psyche, Venus and Adonis. Or, we can immerse ourselves in the classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey where we discover heroes like Achilles, Hercules, Daedalus, Bill (grin).
Or, relax as I did one recent school day morning and learn whimsical Greek mythology from the sixth graders at West Creek Academy in Valencia. Jason was busy searching for the Golden Weasel (grin two) sailing in the Argo with the Argonauts. Our hero, Theseus, embarks on his adventure in the S. S. Minnow (grin three) to conquer the Labyrinth and destroy the evil Minotaur. Theseus successfully exits the maze and wins over the Minotaur by suggesting he eat snacks like Twinkies and chocolate candy!
The singing, dancing, acting and especially the sandals of these young stars are worthy of a Broadway debut (or at least off, off, Broadway)?
It’s Greek to me…or is it Latin?