Interesting Facts

The word ‘museum’ comes from classical Latin where it meant a place holy to the Muses. (In Greek mythology t he Muses  were the goddesses of inspiration in literature, science and the arts. The 9 muses were each protectors of a different art and symbolised by a different item; Calliope (epic poetry - a writing tablet), Clio (history - a scroll or book), Euterpe (lyric poetry - an aulos (a Greek flute)),  Thalia  (comedy and pastoral poetry - a comic mask), Melpomene (tragedy - a sword), Terpsichore (dance - a lyre), Erato (love poetry - a cithara (a Greek type of lyre)), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry / hymns - a veil), and Urania (astronomy - a globe and compass). Nowadays, the word "muse" can  be used to refer to any person who inspires an artist, writer, or musician.)

The word 'diet' first made an appearance in the 13th century. (It comes from the Greek word, diaita, meaning "way of life". The funny thing is it's a four-letter-word and the first 3 letters are "die".)

Dyslexia was originally used to describe someone who had lost the ability to read following a head injury. (It comes from the German word dyslexie, which was made up from Greek dys- "bad, abnormal, difficult" + lexis "word".  Nowadays this type of dyslexia is called deep dyslexia or trauma dyslexia. Someone with dyslexia might have the following issues:- Seeing some letters as backwards or upside down. Seeing text appearing to jump around on a page. The inability to tell the difference between letters and numbers that look similar in shape, such as lower case letters (q and p) & (d and b), and numbers (10 & 01). The numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 9) could be confusing while (8 & 0) would not be, due to being distinctive in shape. Similarly, distinctive lower case letters (i, m, o, v, & w) and upper case (A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, & Y) are typical in shape and therefore not as likely to be confusing. The inability to tell the diffe...

Fakelaki (Φακελάκι) is a Greek word that means "little envelope". (It usually describes a little brown envelope stuffed with cash, and used to bribe officials or other people to "expedite" service. According to Transparency International the average family in Greece pays £1,200 a year in fakelaki, which if true, is astounding to someone who has never bribed anyone to do anything (and wouldn't even know how to go about such a thing). Fakelake - it's such a harmless sounding word, kind of cute, or maybe a bit rude, but the real translation is corruption, a bribe, which is not cute at all.)

Sigma is the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet, but it's also a measurement of standard deviation and it's used in particle physics as a measurement for a discovery. (Seemingly any discovery in particle physics needs a five-sigma level of certainty. This is the equivalent of tossing a coin and getting the same result more than 20 times in a row, because this is very unlikely (try it), a five-sigma result becomes an accepted discovery. So, basically - particle physics is like tossing a coin.)

Prosopagnosia aka Face Blindness is the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people. (It comes from the Greek: "prosopon" = "face", "agnosia" = "inabilty to recognise/identify familiar people or objects". In severe cases people are unable to recognise their own family. Two per cent of the UK population suffers from some form of face blindness, and as someone who is "not good with faces" I think I might be one of them. But now, when I can't put a name to the face, I can at least put a name to the condition.)

Greek sponge divers discovered the oldest computer in 1901. It is a 2,100 year old device and may have been used to calculate the dates for the Olympic Games. (It's called The Antikythera Mechanism. I'm very glad the name didn't catch on, otherwise PC World would have a very long name.)