while i was reading the part about the etymology of the name of the river lethe, i noticed that there's a little imprecision, so i wanted to explain everything (so that i can finally use my knowledge about ancient greek for something hahaha).

the "problem" is when alice says that she doesn't understand the connection between the words lēthē (λήθη), "forgetfulness", and alētheia (ἀλήθεια), "truth", because these two words have the same root, lath-/leth- (λαθ-/ληθ-), but the meanings seem to be completely disconnected. then she proceeds to explain some theories about the connection of the two meanings, but the real answer can be found in the language itself. in fact, the root lath-/leth- is the root of the verb lanthanō (λανθάνω) as well, which means "to hide" when it's the active form, and "to forget" when it's the middle form (in ancient greek the verbs have active, middle, and passive form). i assume that this is because forgetting is like having your memories hidden (?). however, the important thing is that the root lath-/leth- indicates both the concept of forgetting and the concept of hiding. now, the world alētheia has the same root, but it has an a- (α-) at the beginning. that is an alpha privative, a prefix that expresses absence or negation, so it basically gives the word the opposite meaning of the root's meaning. (this phenomenon is also visible in english, for example in the word "atypical", which is the opposite of "typical"). in this case, we have to consider the meaning of "hiding" of the root. because what is truth, alētheia, if not the opposite of hiding? alētheia means not to hide, so it means truth.

sorry for this very long "erm actually 🤓☝️" moment, but i couldn't resist the occasion of flexing my ancient greek knowledge hahaha. however, i hope someone finds this interesting!!! :)