13. Lost in Translation

Having been here for a few months we are beginning to get to grips with some rudimentary Greek words and phrases, and watching TV here is helping with understanding some of the written word. However we are constantly remarking how difficult it is to work out, as letters can have different sounds depending on where they are placed in a word, some lower case letters are written differently to upper case, and for good measure, the endings of words can change according to the gender of words they are coupled with.
Following me so far?
Along with these, for example, the letter O; which is written and used as it is in English, but there is also "omega," which is also O (??), you begin to see how easily mistakes can be made. And to top it all, there are only 24 letters in the alphabet!!!
The free Greek lessons in Parga during the winter can't come soon enough.

However, it isn't all one way traffic. Translation from Greek to English poses problems for our hosts too!! Try these entries taken from an English language TV schedule published in Greece for todays films.

1. The Code of the Navacho - starring Nicholas Cage, is "Windtalkers." Not too bad!

2. Selling is not Done- starring Jack Nicholson, is actually "As Good as it Gets." ????????

The brief descriptions of the plots are even more hilarious............take this "copy and paste" from the outline of the film "Dead On Arrival".......................

The Dexter Cornell, professor of English at the University of Texas, is blegmenos in a series of killings, with victims of people from its environment.The same keen to see exichniasei mystery for another reason: the killer has poisoned with a toxic substance, which would kill him within 24 hours! As time is running against him, Dexter, with the support of an attractive student, Sintei, will launch a struggle of life or death "chasing the murderer me". "Chasing the Murderer Me" was actually listed as the film's title.

Around town you see examples of similar faux pas all the time.
One of my favourites is the sign on the slipway at the end of the beach which is somewhat over optimistic....... "KEEP CLEAR. LAUNCHING OF SHIPS."........ it's just about wide enough for a decent sized van!
You can add to this "Studios with Water and View", (sea view I presume), crub cakes and many others.

I do wonder how bad the signs etc. would be in the UK if it was left to the local English population to translate them into Greek.

Saving the best to until the last, it just had to be a personal experience!

In the centre of the village there is a little cigarette kiosk run by a lovely man called Panos. In the little square behind his kiosk is a butchers shop, and such is the level of trust that still exists here, the shop may be open, but Ileas, the butcher, will have wandered off for a chat somewhere.
This proved to be the case the other day when Margaret went shopping. On finding Ileas missing she asked Panos "Where's the butcher?"
Now Panos speaks quite good English but didn't seem to understand the question, which Margaret repeated. A similar response ensued from Panos who by now bore a strange facial expression. Ileas turned up shortly and Margaret came home wondering why Panos appeared to be so bemused.

A few days later we learned that "butcher", pronounced with very slightly different stress on the letters, is a slang word equivalent to "willy" in English!!!!!!

Now that's one Greek word that Margaret will never forget!!