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It's Mother's day here, today, and I hope it's a happy one for all of you. My own Mum is listening from Athens so, Happy Mother's day Mum!

Αρχή (arhi) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'The authority' but also, 'The beginning'. The word for 'Mother' in ancient Greek is 'Μήτηρ' and in modern 'Μητέρα'. Now that's a word that goes back a very long time and although we find it in all Latin based languages, more or less in similar form, Mutter in German, Madre in Italian and Spanish, Mere in French, Mother in English and so on, there hasn't been a western society solely run by women apart from the Amazons. In Indonesia however, and specifically in West Sumatra, the indigenous ethnic group Minangkabau is the largest female led society that we know of with a population of 6.7 million. Do have a read about them when you get some time. The combination of the two words is found for the very first time in English in 1885 in London's literary journal The Athenaeum. ΜΗΤΡΙΑΡΧΙΑ/MATRIARCHY

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Τρία (tria) in both ancient and modern Greek means 'three'. Πτυχή (ptyhi) means 'fold' and a picture you could fold because it was carved or painted in three compartments, was something very common in religious painting during the Middle Ages. However, it goes back much further, to ancient Greece where according to Herodotus in 5th century BC, a wooden frame filled with wax was used for writing. The material has changed since as well as the appliance of the term. Whether in photography, art or music, a three part project that can be seen as one is a ΤΡΙΠΤΥΧΟ/TRIPTYCH

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Before we begin, a shout-out to fellow thespian and loyal listener, David Charles for bringing today's word to my attention. A word with such an interesting and complex history . Thanks David!

Δια (dia) means 'through' or 'across' and Ασπρο (aspro) in modern Greek , means 'white'. And here's the tricky part, 'asper' is the Latin word for 'rough' (hence 'asperity' in English) but it was also used for the shiny coins of small denomination in Greek Byzantium because their engravings were rough. They were called 'aspro'. And because of that, a fabric that was white and bright with patterns woven onto it, was also called 'aspro'; but the Greeks needed distinguish between the coins and the fabrics so they added δια (dia) to the word, which means a fabric with patterns across it. As time went by and white fabrics started being used to clean babies the word went back to Latin as 'diasprum', to the French as 'diapre' -not used anymore- and in English from the Greek ΔΙΑΣΠΡΑ/DIAPERS

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