bill cobbett wrote:We really should start a discussion on the Language with the Alphabet which it has to be said is derived almost entirely from the Greek.
As to what proportion of the words in the Language are of Gr origin. It really depends on the size and nature of the sample. If we consider only the words in common usage and a typical Native English speaker has a vocab of about 20,000 words then the proportion of gr words in this vocab is very small indeed.
Increase the size of the sample to 80,000 words (the sort of number that are found in a common dictionaries then the proportion grows to about 5%.
Here is the result of a survey featured in the Wiki on the "English Language"
A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973)[66] that estimated the origin of English words as follows:
Influences in English vocabulary
Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
Other Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%
Greek: 5.32%
No etymology given: 4.03%
Derived from proper names: 3.28%
All other languages: less than 1%
Of course if we include words in science dictionaries then that proportion as with Latin derived words really takes off.
My long held view is that the Language reflects the history of the English Speaking People with most words being derived from the original English speakers who migrated from north-western Germany/Friesland in modern day Holland and southern Denmark mixed with the French brought over by the Illegal Norman Conquest and mixed with Latin, not so much from the Attrocious Roman Occupation but from the 1000 years of the Foul Papist Inquisition in England.
As to the word Alcohol .....as ever pray silence for the Good Book that is the OED, on this word...
ALCOHOL
[a. med.L. alcohol, ad. Arab. al-ko{hdotbl}'l ‘collyrium,’ the fine powder used to stain the eyelids, f. ka{hdotbl}ala, Heb. k{amac}khal to stain, paint: see Ezekiel xxiii. 40. It appeared in Eng., as in most of the mod. langs. in 16th c. Cf. Fr. alcohol, now alcool.]
{dag}1. orig. The fine metallic powder used in the East to stain the eyelids, etc.: powdered ore of antimony, stibnite, or antimony trisulphide (known to the Greeks in this use as {pi}{lambda}{alpha}{tau}{upsilon}{goacu}{phi}{theta}{alpha}{lambda}{mu}{omicron}{nu} {sigma}{tau}{giacu}{mu}{mu}{iota}); also, sometimes, powdered galena or lead ore. Obs.
[MINSHEU Sp. Dict. (1623) Alcohól: a drug called Antimonium; it is a kinde of white stone found in siluer mynes. JOHNSON Lex. Chym. (1657) 12 Alcohol est antimonium sive stibium.]
1615 SANDYS Trav. 67 They put betweene the eye-lids and the eye a certaine black powder..made of a minerall brought from the kingdome of Fez, and called Alcohole. 1626 BACON Sylva §739 The Turkes have a Black Powder, made of a Mineral called Alcohole; which with a fine long Pencil they lay under their Eye-lids. 1650 BULWER Anthropomet. iv. 69 A Mineral called Alcohol, with which they colour the hair of their Eye-brows. 1819 Pantol. s.v., The ladies of Barbary tinge their hair, and the edges of their eyelids, with al-ka-hol, the powder of lead ore..That which is employed for ornament and is principally antimony, is called al-cohol or isphahany.
{dag}2. Hence, by extension (in early Chem.): Any fine impalpable powder produced by trituration, or especially by sublimation; as alcohol martis reduced iron, alcohol of sulphur flower of brimstone, etc. Obs.
1543 TRAHERON tr. Vigo's Chirurg., The barbarous auctours use alchohol, or (as I fynde it sometymes wryten) alcofoll, for moost fine poudre. [Alcofoll is Catalan.] 1605 TIMME Quersit. I. xvi. 83 If this glasse be made most thinne in alchool. 1657 Phys. Dict., Alcolismus, is an operation..which reduceth a matter into allcool, the finest pouder that is. 1661 LOVELL Anim. & Min. 3 The alcohol of an Asses spleen. 1751 CHAMBERS Cycl., Alcohol is sometimes also used for a very fine impalpable powder. 1812 SIR H. DAVY Chem. Philos. 310, I have already referred to the alcohol of sulphur.
{dag}3. a. By extension to fluids of the idea of sublimation: An essence, quintessence, or ‘spirit,’ obtained by distillation or ‘rectification’; as alcohol of wine, essence or spirit of wine. Obs.
[LIBAVIUS Alchymia (1594) has vini alcohol vel vinum alcalisatum a mispr. or perhaps misconception for alcolizatum, see ALCOHOLIZATED; JOHNSON Lex. Chym. (1657) 13, Alcohol vini, quando omnis superfluitas vini a vino separatur, ita ut accensum ardeat donec totum consumatur, nihilque fæcum aut phlegmatis in fundo remaneat.]
1672 Phil. Trans. VII. 5059 Assisted by the Alcool of Wine. 1706 PHILLIPS, Alcahol or Alcool, the pure Substance of anything separated from the more Gross. It is more especially taken for a most subtil and highly refined Powder, and sometimes for a very pure Spirit: Thus the highest rectified Spirit of Wine is called Alcohol Vini. 1731 ARBUTHNOT Aliments (J.) Sal volatile oleosum..on account of the alcohol or rectified spirit which it contains. 1753 CHAMBERS Cycl. Supp., Alcohol is used by modern chemists for any fine highly rectified spirit. Ibid. Method of preparing Alcohol of Wine. 1794 PEARSON in Phil. Trans. LXXXIV. 395 Alcohol of gall nut (tincture of gall nut).
b. fig. Quintessence, condensed spirit.
1830 COLERIDGE Lect. Shaks. II. 117 Intense selfishness, the alcohol of egotism.
4. (Short for alcohol of wine, this being the most familiar of ‘rectified spirits.’) The pure or rectified spirit of wine, the spirituous or intoxicating element in fermented liquors. Also, popularly, any liquor containing this spirit. absolute or anhydrous alcohol: alcohol entirely free from water.
1753 CHAMBERS Cycl. Supp. s.v. Spirit, Water is a solvent to alcohol or spirit of wine. 1760 Phil. Trans. LI. 824 Alcohol, or spirit of wine, has been more generally used. 1806 VINCE Hydrost. ii. 25 Pure spirits, called alcohol. 1814 SIR H. DAVY Agric. Chem. 134 The intoxicating powers of fermented liquors depend on the alchohol that they contain. 1873 COOKE Chem. 14 Alcohol has never been frozen. 1875 URE Dict. Arts I. 43 The separation of absolute alcohol would appear to have been first effected about 1300 by Arnauld de Villeneuve. Ibid. 65 If wood-spirit be contained in alcohol, it may be detected..by the test of caustic potash. 1879 RIDGE Temper. Primer 129 Life assurance offices have found that the average length of life of total abstainers is greater than that of drinkers of alcohol.
5. a. Organ. Chem. An extensive class of compounds, of the same type as spirit of wine, composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, some of which are liquid and others solid.
They may be regarded as water (HOH) with one of its hydrogen atoms replaced by a hydro-carbon radical as Methyl (CH3), Ethyl (C2H5), Propyl (C3H7), Butyl (C4H9), Amyl (C5H11) etc., according to the character of which, the alcohol is monocarbon or methyl, dicarbon or ethyl, tricarbon or propyl, etc.; or as paraffins (Methane CH4, Ethane C2H6, Propane C3H8, etc.) with one or more of their hydrogen atoms replaced by equivalent atoms of hydroxyl (HO), according to the number of which atoms replaced, the alcohol is monatomic, diatomic, triatomic, etc. Tricarbon alcohols are primary or secondary, tetracarbon and higher alcohols are primary, secondary, or tertiary, according as the carbon atom united to the hydroxyl atom is also directly in contact with one, two, three other carbon atoms of the molecule. Isomeric alcohols are such as have the same percentage composition but a different arrangement of atoms in the complex molecule, and are physically different substances. The number of possible alcohols is apparently unlimited. [This extension of the name to a genus was made by Dumas and Péligot in 1834-5, in pointing out the analogy between wood-spirit (Methyl alcohol) and spirit of wine; in 1836, they identified another member of the series in ethal (Cetyl alcohol); in 1844, Cahours found another (Amyl alcohol) in Fusel oil; after which the recognition of ‘alcohols’ went on rapidly.]
common (vinous or vinic) alcohol (see prec. sense) is a primary, monatomic, dicarbon or ethyl alcohol, C2H6O, and may be considered as water, in which one atom of hydrogen is replaced by an atom of ethyl, or C2H5; thus C2H5.OH instead of H.OH.
1850 DAUBENY Atom. Theory vii. (ed. 2) 222 The term..alcohol indicates a class, some members of which, far from being volatile, are not even liquid. 1863 WATTS Dict. Chem. (1872) I. 99 The first eight alcohols are liquid. Cetyl alcohol is a solid fat: cerylic and myricylic alcohols are waxy. 1875 URE Dict. Arts I. 42 We speak of the various alcohols. Of these, common or vinous alcohol is the best known. 1879 G. GLADSTONE in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 106/1 Resistance to the action of Alcohols, Acids, and Alkalies.
b. In full alcohol fuel, a fuel used in internal combustion engines, guided missiles, etc.
1901 Sci. Amer. LXXXIV. 344/3 (title) Alcohol as fuel for motor carriages. Ibid., The champions of the alcohol motor scored another triumph in the Paris-Roubaix races. 1904 GOODCHILD & TWENEY Technol. & Sci. Dict. 11/1 Alcohol fuel..In France and Germany cheap alcohol, made from potatoes or beetroot, is utilised to a considerable extent in place of petrol. 1935 Jrnl. R. Aeronaut. Soc. XXXIX. 470 These engines are fitted with positive super-chargers and run on exceptionally high compression ratios on alcohol fuel. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 20/2 Alcohol fuel, volatile liquid-fuel consisting wholly, or partly, of alcohol, able to withstand high-compression ratios without detonation. 1958 Aero-Space Terms 3/1 Alcohol, ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH) or methyl alcohol (CH3OH), used with liquid oxygen as a bipropellant. Ibid., Ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen were used in the German V-2.
ADDITIONS SERIES 1997
alcohol, n.
Add: 6. Comb.alcohol-free a., (a) prohibiting, restricting, or avoiding the sale or consumption of alcoholic drinks; ‘dry’ (DRY a. 11 a); (b) (esp. of a beer, wine, etc.) containing little or no alcohol.
1913 E. GORDON Anti-Alcohol Movement in Europe iv. 134 The fencing associations also exhibited, in recognition of the alliance between athletics and the alcohol-free life... Indirect methods of fighting drink were represented by..an exhibition by thirty firms of alcohol-free wines. 1978 Washington Post 2 Nov. 11/5 Maintain, develop proven programs for ‘average’, handicapped, gifted/talented students. Require disciplined, drug/alcohol free, learning environment. 1979 Ibid. 23 June D9/6 The Saudis have oil, which the world wants. Now C. Schmidt & Sons, a Philadelphia brewery, has something the Saudis want{em}alcohol-free beer. 1986 Summary of World Broadcasts: Soviet Union (B.B.C.) 17 May C2/2 Already in the first quarter of this year we have a growth rate of 37% over last year for alcohol-free drinks. 1990 W. BOYD Brazzaville Beach 47 Apart from his new alcohol-free life, there were no other significant changes in John's life that Hope could easily discern. 1991 B. E. ELLIS Amer. Psycho ii. 27 One should use an alcohol-free antibacterial toner with a water-moistened cotton ball to normalize the skin.
Thanks for that BC. I enjoy others doing my reseaerch. Very enlightening to be sure.
... Cannot manage the 
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