Funny little stories about Greece and Greek

I found these from the web as I was searching material for my thesis and they really made my day. So I wanted to share them with you.

The American expression “OK” comes from Greek!
The origin of the expression is very little known, even by the Greeks.

OK does not come from American, as one might think.

It was used by the Greek dockers who worked at the port of New York.

When a box was ready to be loaded, they wrote on it in chalk “Ola kala” (everything is alright).
This was shortened to OK.

Between Eros and love

In Greek, there are two words for love – eros and agape – which have two completely different meanings. In English the derivatives of the word eros are : erotic (of or concerning sexual love and desire); erotically (in an erotic or sexy way); eroticism (an erotic character or theme); erotomaniac (person afflicted with erotomania); erotomania (excessive sexual desire). On the other hand, agape means : “profound liking, affection, charity”. The word eros corresponds to being in love and the word agape to liking or non-sexual love.

In the ancient texts, only the word eros is used to talk about human relationships. There is an eros for music, philosophy and art. Eros is omnipresent and the driving force behind everything. As for the word agape, it was first used much later and only by the Christians to describe the meals that the faithful shared together (agapes).

For the Greeks, eros was so important that they made a god to it. The god Eros was one of the first gods, as ancient as chaos and Gaïa, and was around well before the apparition of Aphrodite from whom he was later to become inseparable. He brought virtue and prosperity to men and was represented with wings to symbolize the fact that he was omnipresent. His power was immense, and nobody, neither god nor man, dared to resist him. He was also considered to be dangerous because he caused men to lose their reason.

Here are some terms of endearment in Greek

Matia mou, my eyes (stress the first a in mAtia).
Psyché mou (my soul)
Kardia mou (mon heart)
Anapnoï, mon souffle my breath (stress the i), But more literary still.
Cardoulaki mou (my little heart)
Stellaki mou (my little star)
barbouni mou (mon little fish) reserved for sailors!

A day which brings bad luck?

In Greece, Tuesday is considered to be an unlucky day of bad omen.
Do you know why?

It’s because it was on a Tuesday, 29 May 1453, that Constantinople (the town) fell to the Turks.

(source: www.la-grece.com/greece)

This was very interesting to read!Thanks very much for posting Em!

Interesting indeed Em.

I knew those things, still stuff like that very interesting to know about country.

The OK thing you mentioned, uncannily, I thought it meant Ola Kala and I thought it sounded sense by you explaining it. I knew the 2 words were linked.

I had never heard any of these stories. Not even the OK= Ola Kala. But somehow it made sense to me as soon as I read it. Well I guess, you'll learn new things every day.

emilia from finland wrote:

I had never heard any of these stories. Not even the OK= Ola Kala. But somehow it made sense to me as soon as I read it. Well I guess, you'll learn new things every day.

Very interesting piece of information Em. I loved it. But the Ok stuff I've heard it from Sakis in an interview. Thanxs Em.

aleera wrote:

emilia from finland wrote:

I had never heard any of these stories. Not even the OK= Ola Kala. But somehow it made sense to me as soon as I read it. Well I guess, you'll learn new things every day.

Very interesting piece of information Em. I loved it. But the Ok stuff I've heard it from Sakis in an interview. Thanxs Em.

WHAAAAAAAAT! Sakis has said it in interwiew??? I've completely missed it.

No, you haven't missed it! I'm sure you haven't. I've found about it here in the forum. I've even downloaded the interview. I'll check it and tell you later, ok?

Here's the link Em:

http://www.capitolmusic.de/3252296/info.html.

It's a German site. EMI I guess. I know you must have seen it before. It's an interview in 5 parts. In the first part he explains the Ok meaning. And as always he looks so,so,so...Sakis. For now on, I'd better start using his name as an adjective as well. Perhaps, it's just my limited vocabulary but I'm running out of words to describe him. Maybe I must say things like, for instance " Paris is the sakisiest city I've ever seen" or "Your hair looks so sakis today". Please, can anybody help on this one? I'm stuck!

I saw that.