Usually, I focus on words with non-Greek roots, so-called “loan words”. Why do we call them that when we never give them back? Anyway, this week’s word is Greek through and through unless someone wants to take me to some dark corner of Indo-European historical linguistics to prove otherwise.
επιστράτευση – epistratefsi = mobilization. The core word is στρατός, which means ‘army’.
I was in Greece for the Evros River incident in 1986 when there was a real mobilization. The word is currently in the newspapers and on TV, but this time it is in the context of doctors and Covid. ICUs (ΜΕΘ) are at nearly full capacity, so the government asked for around 250 private doctors to volunteer to work in public hospitals. There were very few takers, so the government has had to mobilize doctors to work with Covid patients.
The verb is επιστρατεύω but it is usually found in the passive voice, as in this example:
Ο πνευμονολόγος Λευτέρης Παπαλευθέρης είναι ένας από τους 206 ιδιώτες γιατρούς που επιστρατεύθηκαν στη μάχη κατά της πανδημίας = Pulmonologist Lefteris Papaleftheris is one of the 206 private doctors who have been mobilized in the battle against the pandemic.
Source: iefimerida.gr – https://www.iefimerida.gr/ellada/pneymonologos-epistrateythike-moy-elyse-heria-epitaxi
Note the spelling: επιστρατεύθηκαν. I think a more current spelling would be επιστρατεύτηκαν.
The same source, I believe, misuses a closely related word. It says “Αναφορικά με τη διαδικασία της επίταξης είπε…” Translation: “Referring to the mobilization procedure, he said…” The word επίταξη is used here to mean ‘mobilization’ but, strictly speaking, it means ‘requisition’. I believe mobilization and requisition refer to people and material respectively. To summarise:
επιστράτευση = mobilization, επιστρατεύω = to mobilize
επίταξη = requisition, επιτάσσω = to requisition