The Greek's Word For It

The Greek’s Name For It

The other evening I discovered that the price of having a tooth pulled by a dentist in Sacramento is now $2,000, this amount is nearly my entire salary for about four weeks of hard work. That information reminded me of something I heard a few years ago when I was in Thessaloníki, Greece, staying in the apartment of my friend Kalogiros.

Kalogiros asked me if we had a special word in English for a person who had the training and the means to help a sick person but would not do so unless he was paid. I thought of all the words I could to describe such a villain but finally told him I didn’t think one such precise word existed in the English language.

“In Greek we have such a word.” he said “‘Doctor’”.