my brother-in-law was home from college one weekend where he had just recently joined a fraternity. as part of being a new frat pledge he had to know the whole Greek alphabet. He recited it for us as fast as he could... probably less than 10 seconds.
He wondered if i could say it faster.
i actually used to be a Greek "expert". in college i had several semesters of Greek. maybe 6 Greek classes or more and 20 something credits in Greek. i think i only needed to take 1 more Greek class and i would have had a minor in it.
all that to say - i knew Greek really really well. i could read it with ease. i even invented some modern Greek slang.
Each semester i had to write a Greek exegesis. About a 50 page Greek paper.
and the Greek alphabet? that was day 1. that was the 1st class and you never looked back. for all the rest of my semesters i never gave the alphabet another thought. Just like when you're writing English research papers in high school... you're not thinking about the alphabet anymore. you know it like the back of your hand.
but just a few weeks ago standing in my kitchen? about 6 years removed from college?
i couldn't even remember the alphabet.
i had completely forgotten it. go figure. i guess if you don't use it you lose it.
a big fat shame. almost a minor in Greek and my bro-in-low knows more Greek than me after being in a fraternity for a couple weeks.
maybe i should pull one of my old Greek books off the shelf and dust it off a little.
