There is a lot of undiluted Greek in our daily spoken language and not just English but understood by any street urchin in Europe. There is a term for phrases that are converted by sound from the original language to another using words that sound alike more or less but have entirely different meanings. The source language could be Arabic, French, Russian, or any other language we have run into in our worldquests. I don't have an example at hand outside of secret society cant, but some of our catch phrases are of that type. Others are quick words that are considered improper by English teachers, but which are universal and very ancient. One of the latter terms is the phrase word 'okay'. Look in the dictionary and you will find an example of extremely unschooled definitions. Read Euclid, and Lo!, there it is. Another is 'the hoi polloi', which is Greek of course, but which is incorrect since 'hoi' is 'the', so we are saying 'the the'.
Thanks. "Hoi Polloi" sounds high-fallutin', and yet it means "common people".
http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2001/05/30.html