Chicken Booty

 

Minding the Language Gap

by Alec Newell

"When you call me that, smile."  Gary Cooper, in The Virginian (1946)

 

 

Fortunately, most Greeks have at least a rudimentary grasp of the English language, and  that is especially true of the young people who see fluency in English as a requisite skill that opens doors to all the better paying jobs in this country.  In some cases it has been their ticket out of the country to parts of the globe offering better jobs when the Greek economy was in the tank.  It is not unusual to hear repatriated Greeks who speak English with thick South African, or Australian accents. But as you move out into the more isolated parts of the country, it is almost essential to be able to speak just a little Greek, if only to show some polite measure of accommodation to the natives.  Nothing goes farther to build good will than to attempt even a few mangled words of greeting or appreciation during daily transactions; but those attempts are not always without snares and pitfalls.

 

The Anglo ear and tongue are not always nuanced enough to grasp the subtle differences that can make the difference between a courteous comment and an veiled insult.  The confusion English speakers have with kalimera (good morning) and calamari (squid) have become almost a cliché, and the difference between yerOS (strong) and YERos (old) is just a matter of a slight accent shift, an easy mistake for western tongues to make.

So last week Kathy and I were in a butcher shop in Karlovasi, looking for something to cook on the grill.  I spotted some nice looking thigh quarters behind the glass counter, pointed at them and said to the butcher,  "Kotopoulo, parakalo (The chicken please)."

Butcher: "Bouti?"

Me:  "No, no, the chicken - kotopoulo."

Butcher:  "Ah yes, kotopoulo bouti, you want?"

Me:  "Chicken....... booty?!  No, the leg quarters."

Kathy and the butcher's wife both laughing now.

The butcher indicating Greek lettering on the price tag in the meat case and looking somewhat puzzled now, "Yes, chicken bouti, (chicken thigh) you still like it?"

Pause

Me:  "Well... yes, but in America," pointing at my backside now, "booty means this."

We were back in that same shop again yesterday and the shop owner recognized me immediately, "Ah, you are back!  More chicken booty for you today?"

"Yes, four please."