Columnists
Protecting the Greek Alphabet
Constantine Karamelis has had enough.
Acting interim secretary-treasurer of the Society for the Preservation of the Integrity of the Greek Alphabet (SPIGA), he is “just fed up to here” with the wanton misuse of his beloved alphabet. And he launched into quite a tirade when he spoke with us recently.
In particular, he is upset with the way that letters of the Greek alphabet have been appropriated by disease managers at the World Health Organization. “Why did they have to go and call it the Delta variant? And then to add insult to injury, they named a worse still variant the Omicron. Two perfectly harmless letters of a distinguished alphabet are suddenly associated with the worst strains of the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu. Why couldn’t they call them something nobody would object to—like the Hitler and Amin variants.
“It’s taken us centuries to maintain the high standing of the building blocks of the language of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Look at what we’ve accomplished. When you think ‘Alpha’ you think of the dominant male in a group of gorillas, mountain goats or people. The very word begins the ‘ALPHAbet’ in English. It denotes something that always comes in first.
“Then there’s Beta. When you take beta blockers, you are taking a top drawer heart medication. When you beta test something, you are proudly going out to the market, saying you are ready to compete with the best of them, but flexible enough to adapt to what the market is telling you. Admittedly, we had a bit of an issue with the Betamax video recording format. It was technologically superior to VHS, but the market went to VHS nonetheless. At least it can still refer to losing with dignity..
“I could go on. There’s Gamma in gamma rays. There’s Delta in the Mississippi, in faucets and in airlines. And of course, let’s not minimize the significance of Omega, found in prestige watches and a good-for-you fatty acid.
“The Greek alphabet has also long been associated with academic prestige. To graduate Phi Beta Kappa, you have to be a student at a prestigious university and graduate in the top ten per cent of your class. And it’s surely no accident that fraternities and sororities choose to name themselves by picking three letters from the Greek alphabet.
“There was no need for the World Health Organization to go with the Greek alphabet to name iterations of the coronavirus. Our system of Arabic numerals goes up to infinity, so you’ll never run short of them. Or you could go with paint colours. Along with your standard primary colours, you’ve got all those endless in-between colours that the paint manufacturers come up with like ‘Winter Orange’ or ‘Aubergine Green.’
“The truth is Greece itself has had a bit of a rough ride ever since Spiro T. Agnew resigned his vice-presidency in disgrace and eclipsed Zorba the Greek in the public consciousness. Some negative expressions about Greece—’Beware of Greeks bearing gifts’,’It’s all Greek to me’ and ‘The Greek Economy’—have entered the lexicon Thank goodness Greek yogurt, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nana Mouskouri are still working for us.
“I feel sorry for little Omicron—sitting there minding its own business, content to be a minor figure in mathematical language, and then all of a sudden dragged off the shelf to front for a devilishly contagious strain of COVID-19. But just as it does with the big boys—your Alphas, your Omegas—SPIGA will fight for Omicron to be free from negative associations. And the same goes for Delta. The Greek alphabet deserves nothing less than our best efforts to preserve their dignity.”
Anyone who wants to help Delta and Omicron in this fight can contact spiga.org for more information. Mr. Karamelis will be happy to hear from you.
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