www.alphadictionary.com

• galaxy •

Pronunciation: gæ-lêk-si •

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A huge aggregate of stars and associated matter held together by gravitational attraction. 2. A large number of related things. 3. (Capitalized) The Milky Way, the star system to which Earth's sun belongs.

Notes: Today's word is the center of a large family of words referring to galaxies and milk. The adjective for galaxy is galactic, that can also mean "enormous, vast". It comes with an adverb, galactically. Galactic may also be used in reference to milk, as 'galactic acid' (= 'lactic acid'). It appears in many compounds, such as galactopoiesis "production of milk" and galactorrhea "overproduction of milk" by the mammary glands. 'Battlestar Galactica' was a spaceship in a series of the same name on US television.

In Play: Here is the way we would use this word capitalized and uncapitalized "The earth's Galaxy is a disk-shaped galaxy with approximately 100,000 million stars." You might come across the figurative sense in expressions like this: "Smart phones opened a whole galaxy of possibilities that were not available before."

Word History: Today's Good Word was picked up from French galaxie, passed down from Latin galaxias "the Milky Way". This Latin noun was a copy of the Greek adjective galaxias in galaxias kyklos "milky circle" (= "Milky Way"). Greek and Latin inherited their words from the same PIE word, glakt- "milk". For some reason, neither Greek nor Latin liked this particular combination of GL, but they dealt with their dislike in different ways. Greek added an A between the G and L; Latin just dropped the G to produce lac, lactis "milk". That is why English has both lactic and galactic acid—it borrowed the word from both languages. We find remnants of the PIE word in Armenian kat'n "milk", and Albanian dhalle "buttermilk". French, of course, turned Latin lac, lactis into lait, as in 'café au lait', and Italian, into (caffè) latte. The Germanic and Slavic languages chose the PIE synonym for "milk", melg-, which had turned into English milk and Russian moloko by the time it reached those languages. (Let's all now thank Anna Jung for suggesting we do today's highly complex yet fascinating Good Word.)

Ah, the yummy Greek dessert galaktoboureko! I just never made the connection.

And the word for milk in modern Greek is, indeed γαλα (gala) to this day. There is also a slightly different form of the word in ρισογαλο, or 'ricemilk',with sugar and cinnamon, a favorite dessert in many of the tavernas around Athens, anyway.

Gene, is it a liquid? if solid, do you know what else is in it to make it so? Is it frozen?

It is a bit of both, and can vary taverna to taverna. The rice, cooked in the milk, remains a recognizable kernel, though quite soft usually, and the milk and sugar has cooled. The cinnamon is lightly sprinkled over it before serving. It does take some time to cook, because the milk should not be overheated, which, it was explained to me, prevents much congealing. But the longer it sits, the stiffer it can get, as the rice's protein will do. Most of the places I was able to get it made their 'batch' starting early in the morning, to be ready for the afternoon meal. The Greek eating schedule is much different than in the US. I've never seen it in frozen form. But, as with yogurt, which we now have in frozen form, it could happen.

Nor, I should add, have I ever seen a recipe that stated how much milk to use with how much rice, and how much sugar to add - perhaps to 'taste'. None of the dishes I had were ever overly sweet.

Gene, thank you very much.
I thought the "rice milk" was what is sold in stores now for those avoiding REAL milk. It didn't occur to me that was rice AND milk.
Oh well.
We all know the danger inherent in assuming.

Mothers in the hinterlands would make a porridge of rice, whole milk, raisins and brown sugar. It was my favorite breakfast cereal. My dear wife is not from the hinterlands, so If I want it now I must make it myself.

Oh yes - my mother would make it, but only on, or near, the 'high' holidays, like Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. I came to like it because the cooking would make the raisins plump up. But she didn't make it often because, she said, it was 'too much fuss', which, after watching her over the stove, tending it, Dad and I didn't press her to make it more often. I don't remember that we ever got any cinnamon with it.