Each time an English-speaking person starts talking about biblical or classical themes, this amazes me again: they almost always change the original names. Examples? Alright...
Homer, spelled in Greek, is Ομηροσ. Count the letters and mind the fact that the 'h' sound in Greek comes from an apostrophe on the first omicron... that should be Homeros. Two letters got lost in the translation. Also Ilias became Iliad.
Or, Mark Anthony, like I read somewhere, in Latin is Marcus Antonius. Where did this 'k' come from? It doesn't even exist in the Latin alphabet.
Can anyone tell me why this is?
02/05/2006 Yes, this is actually a rather silly wu. But without it, the informative one below doesn't really work. As Grichka doesn't seem to be around much, I'll just leave this here... for now.