And just like that, we’re at the end of season nine! How did that happen? I want to thank everyone who stayed with me for another season, everyone new who joined us this year and everyone who commented and reviewed the podcast. It feels great reading what you think and since this is a solo venture it’s great when I know you’re out there, listening. Thank you again and…on with our episode!

(Piano music) Hello, and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go!

As this season comes to end I will leave you with the queen of Greek herbs! It smells fantastic , it goes with 99.9% of any Greek dish and it was of course created by the goddess Aphrodite! No, not really. But that’s how the myth goes! Aphrodite created this herb in her garden in mount Olympus to bring joy to humanity. It grows on mountains and its name comes from two words, όρος (oros) meaning ‘mountain’ and γάνα (gana) meaning ‘joy’. Because of that, Ancient Greeks would make wreaths out of it for weddings and in medieval times it was considered a ward against evil. There’s another plant in the same family that exists in Greece but it's also native to the UK and it’s called Marjoram. They are incredibly similar and people have been using it exactly as the Greeks where using theirs. In America the herb arrives with the Italian immigrants but it became very popular after WW2 when soldiers returning from Europe were craving it. How do you know you’re eating greek food? it has ΡΙΓΑΝΗ/OREGANO

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