We may not be aware of it but we all know a bit of Greek. 'Marathon', for instance, means 'snickers'. And we know that any word ending in 'thlon' means something like 'event'. Biathlon, decathlon, pentathlon, triathlon - all multiple sports events. So, if we are in Greece and we want to invite people to a social gathering we might baulk at trying to communicate, bridging the language barrier.
'We're holding a little event', we would start off shouting slowly in English, perhaps trying out a bit of pidgin sign language.
'Eh?' they say.
'A thlon' you say hopefully. 'We're thinking of having a thlon'.
'Thlon, thlon' they say, turning to each other joyfully, the penny dropping (or at time of writing, the Euro cent dropping, as it is not yet known in the present financial meltdown whether Greece will revert to their previous currency, the drachma. If it does the couple mentioned will realise in terms of the lepton dropping (100 lepta = 1 drachma))... (Continued at www.tinybangtheories.com)