‘Bollocks with Flowers’. I learn a little more Greek every
day, and I’ve only just come across this delightful expression. You see, I’ve
been having some trouble translating a Greek novel written 200 years ago by a
Kephallonian. Not only is it written in ‘katharevousa’ (‘Purified’ Greek; an
outmoded language with different grammar, vocabulary and syntax) but it is
sprinkled with Italian words in Greek type, and many specifically Kephallonian
dialect words and expressions. And I was lucky enough the other evening to
meet, in our little bookshop / bar, an educated Kephallonian woman who had been
doing a summer job as a waitress here. Her taverna being now closed, we met
again the next evening in the same place, and this time I had the book with me.
She helped with many words and phrases that were quite unknown to me.
After she’d gone, one of the regular customers — he comes
for the drinks, not the books — looked up from the corner where he’d been
lurking and said ‘Nice lady you were talking to,’ and went on to make the usual
male remarks, which I won’t give here. I responded in a very ψηλομύτης (‘high-nosed’)
manner that such considerations had not crossed my mind; we had been engaged
entirely in discussions of a literary nature.
‘Αρχίδια με Λουλούδια’
he replied.
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