Chapter 8  Influence on Words 

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Influence of Greek mythology on the English roots and affixes:   deeply implanted into the English vocabulary.

 Roots of Gods' Names

Myth names, the root words and word affixes, in accordance with the linguistic point of view, have led the majority of English words to adjectives, followed by nouns and verbs. From the quantitative point of view, the words derived from the names of the goddesses are more than those of the gods

Eros, the son of the goddess of love, was an archer, and his arrows were responsible for instilling the twists and turns of love and lust in a people's heart. Saying goes, his mother must have the aid from him to spread the so-called human love in the spirit world. So there generate the words erotic (of or concerning love and desire or a womanizer), erotica (ero writing and drawings, etc.); eroticism (a style or quality that expresses strong feeling and fuels love and desire): erotogenic (stimulating sexual desire); erotology (the study of erotic stimuli and sexual behavior).

Athenais the Goddess of wisdom, knowledge, technology, learning and arts. With the combination of her name Athena and the suffix -um, we have the word athenaeum (an institution, such as a literary club or scientific academy, for the promotion of learning). In the same manner, emerges the word museum, in which Muses are goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. They were believed to inspire all artists, especially poets, philosophers, and musicians.

In the history of Western paintings, Aphrodite is the only goddess of beauty that has been demonstrated with the naked body. This ancient Greek myth is unique in its existence. Creative Italian painter Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus (Aphrodite's name in Roman mythology)" typically showed Aphrodite's sensuality and the external side of the vulgar. So Aphrodite turned into English terminology all with "sex or sex-relevant" like aphrodisiac (sexual desire or a drug or other agent that stimulates sexual desire). 

Tantalusis the root of tantalizing. Tantalus was the son of Zeus and was the king of Sipylos. He was uniquely favored among mortals, however, he attempted to kill the gods and was punished by being "tantalized" with hunger and thirst: the gods punished Tantalus by placing him in a clear pool above which grew delicious fruit. Whenever he sought to relieve his thirst or hunger, the water and fruit would always recede just beyond his reach.

 Aeolus, custodian of the four winds, came the adjective aeolian (of or relating to the wind; produced or carried by the wind). The god of the North Wind Boreas is tuned into boreal (of or relating to the north or the north wind); likewise, the word zephyr (the west wind or a soft or gentle breeze) was born from the god of the West Wind Zephyrus.

 English Affixes of Gods Names

Such affixes are usually abstract and general that form the majority of the prefixes, Words are mostly from the names of mythological figures with certain power or of certain symbolic significance.

 The Greek goddess of the dawn, Eos, was the sister of Helios (sun) and Selene (moon) and the mother of the four winds: Boreas, Eurus, Zephyrus and Notus; and also of Heosphoros and the Stars.

 She was depicted as a goddess whose rosy fingers opened the gates of heaven to the chariot of the Sun. Evolution of the goddess name appears as a prefix eos, meaning "dawn. first, original.

Theaffix selen", meaning "month, " evolved from the moon goddess Selene. She resembled a young woman with an extremely white face who traveled on a silver chariot drawn by two horses wearing a half moon on her head. Such words as selenodesist (lunar scientist) and selenology

Similarly, affix hebe-, meaning youth, comes from Hebe, the goddess of youth, who poured the nectar of the gods on the Olympus until Ganymede replaced her. And examples can be found in the word hebephrenia, whose medical meaning is "a kind of adolescent disease characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, and delusions.

And in the Greek myth, there exist some giants, Mythical giant was produced naturally in people's conquest of the world when the productivity of performance was still low. It was told that once the most gigantic offspring of Uranus and Gaea were a group of creatures, both male and female, who were Titans and Titaness. Titans are a race of godlike giants who were considered to be the personifications of the forces of nature. For that reason, titan always refers to the academic or political giant, or people with great strength. The title of the blockbuster Titanic is derived from titan.