I enjoyed Tony Payne’s identification of an instance of what he calls the “Gus the Greek Fallacy” (= the etymological fallacy). In a movie which is great for illustrating cross-cultural issues – My Big Fat Greek Wedding – Gus Portokalos’ daughter, Toula, meets resistance from her parents when she wants to marry Ian Miller. Gus is passionately Greek. Indeed, to him there are only two kinds of people in the world – Greeks and those who want to be Greeks. In his amusing, ethnocentric manner, Gus challenges everyone to give him a word, insisting he will show that the root of that word is Greek. Here are some examples of Gus the Greek’s etymological conclusions:
You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller comes from the Greek word “milo” which is mean ”apple,” so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word “portokali,” which means “orange.” Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.
Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono. There you go!
In reality, of course, the true meaning of a word can only be determined through a study of usage, not word-roots. Tony observes that “Goodbye” is a 16th-century contraction of “God be with you.” However, when people use this word today, it is without any such thought in their heads. The word hippopotamus literally means “river horse.” But, as Tony points, out this doesn’t mean this creature is a suitable animal to ride.
Consider too this example from Evan Morris’ (The Word Detective) entertaining an informative website (http://www.word-detective.com/backidx.html):
“Sabot” is the French word for a wooden shoe, or clog. Various stories tell of French workers, like their English brethren, rebelling against the depredations of the Industrial Revolution, in this case by tossing their “sabots” into the newfangled machinery, bringing production to a halt.
It’s an appealing story. After all, who wouldn’t like to throw an occasional shoe (or a wrench) into the machines that set our frenetic social pace? But the story isn’t true, and there’s no evidence that any “sabots” were ever tossed. “Sabotage” actually comes from the French verb “saboter,” which means to make a loud clattering with wooden shoes. Metaphorically, the French use “sabotage” to mean a variety of things — botching a musical performance, doing a bad job at anything, or deliberately destroying tools or machinery. This last meaning was the one carried over into English, where “sabotage” took on the additional meaning of damage done clandestinely to impair an enemy’s ability to fight.
Actually, Tony was pointing out that, at one point, Greek scholar R.H. Mounce has fallen into the “Gus the Greek Fallacy.” Mounce was commenting on the meaning of preaching and sought to discriminate beween kerysso and euangelizomai. He maintained that kerysso was concerned with the activity of preaching, while euangelizomai, because it is derived from primitive eus, “good”, and angello, “to announce”, is concerned with the quality of the message.
However, a study of biblical word usage, indicates that euangelizomai simply means “to announce or proclaim news.” As Tony points out the news was normally of a significant nature, e.g. announcing the birth of the Emperor’s son. But the quality or nature of the news depended on the “newsflash” itself. Take Luke 3:18. John the Baptist has just told people that Jesus is the Great Harvester who will clear his threshing fire, gathering wheat into his barn, but burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. Summarising this Luke notes how “with many other words John exhorted the people and [preached the news] to the people.” And, yes, I had to use square brackets because the NIV buys into the same fallacy, translating “preached the good news” (my emphasis).
I’m sure not every one though the announcement of the birth of the Emperor’s son was good news. Similarly, notwithstanding the eu (“good”) prefix the euangelion (evangel/gospel) is simply “news”. Yes, it is GOOD news for those who repent, but BAD news for those who don’t! (Compare 1 Corinthians 1:18, 23; 2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
[Source: The Briefing 353 (Feb 2008) 6]
Posted May 31, 2008
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