Grammar Girl here. I'm In Yon Fogarty, and today we're going to talk about words related to the Winter Olympics.

The 26 Milan-Cortino Winter Olympics began just a few days ago, and if you listen closely to the broadcast, you will hear an avalanche of interesting terms, slalom, luge,

toboggan, and more. Today, we'll trace some of their origins to Greek mountains, indigenous

clothing, and even wealthy Swiss hotel guests who recklessly invented an Olympic sport.

Let's start with the word Olympic itself. It comes from Greece, where it was

the name of Mount Olympos, supposed home of the Greek gods, but also a town called Olympia,

where the first ancient Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE in honor of Zeus, who had a temple there.

The related word Olympiad came into English in the late 14th century, meaning period of four years between Olympic Games, and highlights

just what a big deal the Olympic Games were to the ancient Greeks, because according to Edomon

Online, they didn't use it just for sports.

They also used it as an actual unit of time.

For example, Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, which ancient Greek historians referred to as

the first year of the 114th Olympiad. And if you're actually a genius who's doing

the Olympiad math in your head, you might think it should be the second year of the 114th Olympiad,

but the calculation is complicated by the fact that the Olympiads ran from midsummer to midsummer.

And while we're in ancient Greece, athlete comes from a Greek word, meaning one who competes

for a prize or contestant, which comes from Athlos, meaning contest or prize.

This route also gives us the decathlon, Greek deca meaning 10 plus Athlos, and biathlon, which has buy for two contests

in the Olympics, cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Although Greek gives us the Olympics,

Norwegian and Old Norse dominate the language of skiing. Nearly every skiing term you know

comes from Scandinavia.

The word ski itself entered English from Norwegian in 1755, and originally comes from the

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