αμέτι μουχαμέτι: Semantics

We have just looked at the development of the syntax of αμέτι μουχαμέτι, from an Ottoman Turkish noun phrase ümmet-i Muhammed "nation of Muhammad", to the Modern Greek adverb "come hell or high water"—which arguably has ended up, in a limited sense, as a noun comparable in function to σκοπός "purpose" or όρκος "oath". And we tried to account for the shift from noun, through exclamation, to adverb—and back to noun—by appealing to reanalysis and extension.

Reanalysis and extension also apply to semantic change, and in this post, I pick up from my second last post on Vasilis Orfanos' analysis of the semantic transition, over at the Magnificent Nikos Sarantakos' Blog. The debate that broke out between commenters on when the changeover happened is of particular interest, since it highlights the mechanism of how gradual the semantic change is.

To start with, what actually happened to "nation of Muhammad" to end up meaning "come hell or high water" is pretty clear, and I will quote Orfanos' analysis:

In Turkish there is an expression ümmet-i Muhammed, "nation of Muhammad", with which Muslims refer to the sum of their coreligionists. During Ottoman rule, it was also used as a warcry, which was interpreted by Greeks as an oath/commitment to attain victory. So it passed into Greek with the sense "at any sacrifice", as αμέτι μουχαμέτι—possibly through the influence of a folk etymology from the name Ahmed or the oath Μα το Μουχαμέτη "By Muhammad!"

Let's walk through the examples again, from a semantic rather than syntactic point this time. Unsurprisingly, the semantic and the syntactic development aligned closely.

To begin with, the expression refers literally to the Muslim nation (1, 5):

• Τον κύριο παρακάλεσαν να κάμη μερχαμέτι, Και να τους κάμη ολουνούς του Μουχαμέτ’ ουμμέτι "They begged the Lord to show compassion, and to make them all Muhammad's nation".

When the word acts as a war cry (as a vocative and then an exclamation), it expresses encouragement to action (4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13)—as well as its polar opposite, despair (3, 14, 15, 16):

• ιμέτι, Μωχαμέτη, ’Σ τον ντιν ντουσμάνη σήμερα να κάμωμεν γαϊρέτι, "Nation of Muhammad! Today against the infidel enemy we shall show endurance."
  
• Ορίστε, λεγ’ Αλήπασας, ιμέτι Μουχαμέτη, Χαΐρι δεν εχούμε ’μεις εφέτ’ απ’ το ντουβλέτι, "'See,' Ali Pasha says, 'By the Nation of Muhammad! We're not seeing any joy from the government this year!'"

Analysed at that level, the distinction between vocative and exclamation is not that relevant. The reanalysis is clearly when the expression is still a vocative—going from referring to Muslim troops being addressed, to an exclamation. The extension is, again, when the expression of encouragement is used without anyone explicitly being addressed; admittedly, that is clear in the expression of despair rather than the warcry.

The critical switch syntactically was when the expression was used in indirect speech: that allowed it to be reanalysed from an exclamation to an adverb (2, 10). The accompanying semantic shift is earlier: it is already inherent in a warcry, used in direct speech, that the exclamation indicates a commitment to do something, particularly in that it was followed by a command to do it:

• (6) Αμέτη, Μωαμέτη! Πιάστε τον τόπον δυνατά, "Nation of Muhammad! Fortify the place boldly."

The conflation with the oath μα το Μουχαμέτη "By Muhammad!" would have reinforced that notion of commitment. The use of the expression in indirect speech is an extension, rather than a reanalysis of that meaning of commitment: it is now separated from any notion of directly addressing people. Orfanos accordingly identified the song on Messolonghi (10) as critical to the development of αμέτι μουχαμέτι—"as an oath committing the besiegers to achieve their goals":

• Όλοι τους ωρκισθήκανε αμέτι Μουχαμέτη, στο Μεσολόγγι να εμβούν, να κάμουν κιαμέτι "They all swore, 'Nation of Muhammad!', to enter Messolonghi and cause havoc."

But αμέτι Μουχαμέτη does not actually mean anything intrinsically different in (6) and (10): the change is syntactic, not semantic. The essential meaning is still the same: "the subject is committing themselves to doing X".

From "They swear they will do X", it is an easy step to "they will definitely do X", "they will bloodymindedly do X". That is the shift in (12), where the modern use of the expression is obvious:

• αλλά ο Γαρδικιότης είναι Αμέτ Μουαμέτ κατά του στραβού, "but Gardikiotis is bloodymindedly against the blind man."

Again, the change here is syntactic: it has broadened the contexts in which the expression shows up. There is a slight change in meaning in (12), which is metonymic. X committing to doing Y contains the necessary implication that X feels strongly about Y. The semantic shift moves in (12) from commitment to an action, to indication of the associated emotion: Gardikiotis is not committing to doing anything as bloodymindedly as an Ottoman warrior: he just shows the same singlemindedness as an Ottoman warrior.

But this generalisation in meaning hasn't been followed since: αμέτι μουχαμέτι is still associated with intended action, rather than emotional state. What has been picked up by the expression, rather, is connotation, which leads to the meaning being strengthened.

The context is key to how the connotations took root; context, after all, is where connotations come from. Greeks who did not understand Turkish heard the cry in battle, preceding an undertaking to wreak havoc: "Ümmet-i Muhammed! We will burn them down!" The cry sounds something like "By Muhammad!", which cements the notion that it expresses a religiously fervent, bloodyminded commitment to do ill, made by hostile warriors. When the cry is reanalysed as a more generic adverb indicating commitment, those connotations come along with it: it has picked up the negative connotations of "being on the warpath", of unreasonableness, of disproportionate singlemindedness.

That, I hope, is revealing. The real change in αμέτι μουχαμέτι is syntactic, not semantic; the essential semantic reanalysis, from vocative to expression of commitment, is earlier (indeed, it happened in Turkish and not Greek), and it is not particularly drastic. Connotation, rather than semantic shift, has given the expression the force it now has; and connotation is a more subtle change than the syntactic reanalyses undergone by αμέτι μουχαμέτι.

Because the semantic change is not particularly pronounced, my godfather Tasos Kaplanis thought there was still a missing link between the 1820s songs with warcries (10) and the 1859 Modern Greek adverbial use (12):

What is impressive is that in most cases from the 19th century recorded in the post, the phrase has or could have the initial meaning it has in Turkish—until we reach Xenos (12) and Papdiamantis (17, 18), who record the phrase with more or less its modern meaning. […] I find this somewhat peculiar, and I still can't see the link between the popular records of the phrase (not just in folk song and older texts, but also Kolokotronis and Koutsonikas), and the literary or learnèd usage by Xenos and Papadiamantis.

In other words, in (10) the expression is still a Muslim warcry; in (12) it is a Greek adverb; and the transition between the two is not obvious.

I think the ensuing exchange is illuminating:

• Nikos Sarantakos thinks the songs of Messolonghi (10) and Xopateras (11) do provide the missing link: "they swore, amet moukhamet, they would conquer Messolonghi / they would seize the priest."
  
• Tasos thinks that (11) merely quotes the interjection. In fact, that's also how I'd interpreted it last post. As to the critical example (10), Tasos says:
  

  In the siege of Messolonghi, Legrand's misunderstanding ("By Muhammad!") could be a missing link—though I still don't see how we got from "By Muhammad!" to "stubbornly, wilfully, at any sacrifice", etc. And if you add a comma to edition, αμέτι μουχαμέτι turns back into ümmet-i Muhammed: "They all swore, Nation of Muhammed, they would enter Messolonghi."

  
  
• Maria retorts she too can see the transition clearly.
  
• Tasos answers: "OK, Maria, maybe I can't see it because I understand what the Turkish means."

Tasos wasn't saying that because he took offence, but because understanding Turkish really does get in the way of seeing how the meaning change happened: that's why I'm highlighting the exchange. Greek speakers clearly were starting not to understand what ümmet-i Muhammed means: that's what allowed them to distort ümmet as αμέτι. Greek speakers were starting to guess what αμέτι μουχαμέτι meant from context. That meant that the meaning shift was possible as a reanalysis, even if superficially the phrases looked the same: the meaning shift happened in Greek-speakers' heads, and had not yet undergone extension to new contexts. So if you actually do know Turkish, you will not initially notice a change at all.

It's not surprising that Sarantakos, like Orfanos, highlights (10) as a pivot: it displays a clear syntactic reanalysis, rather than the more subtle semantic shift, through indirect speech. Tasos retorts that the difference between "at any cost" and "Nation of Muhammad!" in (10) is merely a comma. But of course, that's precisely why (10) matters: syntactic reanalysis is exactly a matter of a missing comma—that is, a reinterpretation of the syntactic structure, which can be represented through intonation, and in print through commas.

Sarantakos also highlights (11) as a comparable instance. I said that in the last post I interpreted (11) like Tasos, with a disjoint exclamation: "'Glory to Allah', they cried, and 'Ameti Moukhameti': they would go seize the priest, to calm Crete down." The expression does look like (10), and could be construed in the same way, as indirect speech containing an exclamation: "and (Nation of Muhammad!) they would go seize the priest" > "and at any cost, they would go seize the priest".

I don't think that's what the composer of the song intended—because "Nation of Muhammed!" was conjoined with "Glory to Allah!" But that construal was clearly starting to be possible—and in a couple of decades, led to the unambiguous extension in (12). And I hope I've explained above how to get from "By Muhammad" to "at any sacrifice", through hostile connotation. ...Read more

αμέτι μουχαμέτι: Syntax

We saw in the last post the evidence for the development of αμέτι μουχαμέτι in the 19th century, from the Ottoman Turkish ümmet-i Muhammed "nation of Muhammed", to the Modern Greek "come hell or high water". We can already get a fair idea of how the meaning shifted, from the examples Vasilis Orfanos produced—and which I will keep citing, following the numbering in the last post. I did not yet finalise my take on how the change in meaning happened—and, more interestingly, when.

I won't do that this post either, because instead I want to look at how not just the semantics, but the syntax of the expression changed. Like the semantics, I will claim that the syntax of this expression, like that of so many others, changed through an iteration of reanalysis and extension: hearers reinterpret an expression in an ambiguous context, assigning it a new structure—and then they extend that new structure to novel contexts, where the old interpretation could not be used. The reanalysis brings the new structure into being, but only the extension makes the structure visible, as an unambiguous addition to the language.

So it was with the semantics of the expression—through sentences where the Ottoman warcry was reinterpreted as an expression of bloodymindedness, as I will try to walk through. So it is was, at least for the most part, with the syntax. There is a change at the end where the extension may not have been out of an ambiguous context, but a more abstract jump—which is perfectly possible, but not what I prefer. But let's get there slowly.

A good deal of the change in the syntax of αμέτι μουχαμέτι had already happened in Ottoman Turkish. Originally, of course, ümmet-i Muhammed was just a noun phrase, and we see that meaning literally in (1, 5):

• Τον κύριο παρακάλεσαν να κάμη μερχαμέτι, Και να τους κάμη ολουνούς του Μουχαμέτ’ ουμμέτι "They begged the Lord to show compassion, and to make them all Muhammad's nation".

Ottomans addressed groups of Muslims as ümmet-i Muhammed, which makes the expression a vocative. The salient example of this, of course, is the warcry to Muslim troops. I claimed (2) was the first example of this, but the syntax is darker than that. But the warcry is clearly there in (4, 6, 8, 9, 13)

• ιμέτι, Μωχαμέτη, ’Σ τον ντιν ντουσμάνη σήμερα να κάμωμεν γαϊρέτι, "Nation of Muhammad! Today against the infidel enemy we shall show endurance."

Extension can't be usefully shown here, because this is still a noun phrase. The next function is too close to disentangle as well: as an exclamation. When troops are being addressed, as in (4), it is ambiguous whether ümmet-i Muhammed is an exclamation or a vocative. The extension happens when there are no troops being addressed, so the expression no longer makes sense as a term of address.

That extension is clearly what Ali Pasha used, when ümmet-i Muhammed is an exclamation of surprise or dismay, not an address to troops (3):

Ορίστε, λεγ’ Αλήπασας, ιμέτι Μουχαμέτη, Χαΐρι δεν εχούμε ’μεις εφέτ’ απ’ το ντουβλέτι, "'See,' Ali Pasha says, 'By the Nation of Muhammad! We're not seeing any joy from the government this year!'"

The late exclamations of dismay attributed to Ottomans (14, 15) also fall under this class. We would also see the warcry as an exclamation instead of a vocative, if it were used in addressing someone other than troops, or in a way otherwise incompatible with vocatives.

• In an example like "Ümmet-i Muhammed! Today you will die, infidels!", ümmet-i Muhammed would not be used to address Muslims.
  
• Kolokotronis, by nominalising the cry, is treating it as something said, which is more consistent with an exclamation than an address (7): και με το αμέτ μουχαμέτ ώρμησαν κατά των ιδικών μας, "with an Amet Moukhamet they rushed onto our men".
  
• The song on Xopateras (11) treats Ümmet-i Muhammed! as the same kind of phrase as SubhanAllah "Glory to Allah!", and it is not followed by a command.
  
• The song on Tryfitsos (16) joins Ameti mou Khameti to the next sentence with "and"—which is inconsistent with a vocative: αμέτι μου χαμέτι και ο Τρυφίτσος είν κιοσές που μας-ε παίζει μπέτι, "Ameti mou khameti, and Tryfitsos is the one who is firing at our chests." That cannot be interpreted as "Oh Nation of Muhammad!—And Tryfitsos is firing at us."

The Greek expression, with its notion of obstinacy, clearly came from the warcry and not the cry of despair. What's critical for the next reanalysis is that the expression is an exclamation—which allows it to turn up in a broad range of contexts. In several instances of the warcry, the exclamation introduces a commitment to do something:

• (4) Nation of Muhammad! Today against the infidel enemy we shall show endurance.
  
• (6) Nation of Muhammad! Fortify the place boldly.
  
• (13) Nation of Muhammad! We will burn them down.

If Greeks no longer understood ümmet-i Muhammad, and distorted it to αμέτι μουχαμέτι, the exclamation could be reinterpreted as an adverbial phrase: "definitely, at any cost, come hell or high water"; so "at any cost, we will burn them down!" It would help such an interpretation along, that one of the phrases likely to have been conflated with ümmet-i Muhammad was μα το Μουχαμέτη "by Muhammad"—which also can be used to expressed commitment.

The adverbial interpretation helps when the expression turns up in indirect speech, where the vocative cannot, and even the exclamation is problematic. That indirect speech use seems to me to motivate (2) and (10)—(10) more clearly than (2):

• (2) τους Τούρκους όλους λάλει· όλοι τους –­ ουμέτι Μουαμέτη –­ ας δράμουν στην μητρόπολι "Tell all the Muslims: all of them—Nation of Muhammad—should run to the cathedral":
  
  • Interpreted as apposition: "all of them, namely the Nation of Muhammad, should run": noun phrase
    
  • Interpreted as indirect speech, quoting exclamation: "Tell all the Muslims: 'Nation of Muhammad! All of you should run to the Cathedral'" A vocative could not be so quoted: "Troops! All of you should run to the Cathedral!" cannot be rendered as "Tell the soldiers, all of them—??Troops!—should run to the Cathedral." So ümmet-i Muhammad no longer has vocative force.
  
  
• (10) Όλοι τους ωρκισθήκανε αμέτι Μουχαμέτη, στο Μεσολόγγι να εμβούν, να κάμουν κιαμέτι "They all swore, 'Nation of Muhammad!', to enter Messolonghi and cause havoc." It is impossible for 'Nation of Muhammad' here to be a vocative: this is quoting the Muslims' oath, "Nation of Muhammad! We will enter Messolonghi and cause havoc!", with 'Nation of Muhammad' treated as an exclamation.

But while (10) makes sense as quoting Muslims crying "Nation of Muhammad!", embedding an exclamation in indirect speech is a very odd thing to do. Any exclamations in indirect speech should be coming from the speaker, not those quoted. An exclamation like "onwards!", though, can be reanalysed as an adverbial phrase, "crying 'onwards'"—or "as if crying 'onwards'"—or, for that matter, "at any cost".

That interpretation is more comfortable with (10): "They all swore, 'Nation of Muhammad!', to enter Messolonghi and cause havoc" > "They all swore, crying 'Nation of Muhammad!'", or "They all swore, in a 'Nation of Muhammad!' way", or "They all swore, at any cost to enter Messolonghi."

We have now arrived at the Modern Greek expression, which is adverbial. We have also arrived at the meaning of the Modern Greek expression, which derides obstinacy: αμέτι μουχαμέτι means, ultimately, "in such a bloodyminded way, you'd think he was urging Muslims into battle". But for that intepretation to be possible, people had to be using "Nation of Muhammad!" in Greek in indirect speech, and no longer as a vocative.

By (12, 17, 19) we clearly have extension to a context where both the vocative and the exclamation are impossible, and indeed to a context where there can be no reference to Muslim troops at all. This can be straightforwardly read as adverbial use, in the modern sense:

• (12) αλλά ο Γαρδικιότης είναι Αμέτ Μουαμέτ κατά του στραβού, "but Gardikiotis is bloodymindedly against the blind man."
  
• (17) ο Αλικιάδης είχεν απόφασιν, “Αμέτ Μουαμέτ”, να βάλη τη δουλειά εμπρός, "Alikiadis had decided, bloodymindedly, to go ahead with the venture."
  
• (19) ήρθε αμέτι μουhαμέτι να μαλώση, "he came bloodymindedly intending to fight."

The expression did not stop as an adverb, however. Recall that αμέτι μουχαμέτι is used in the following ways in Modern Greek:

• as an adverb generally: τα 1.280.000 ευρώ πρέπει να γίνουν, αμέτι μουχαμέτι, ποδηλατόδρομος, "The 1.28 million euros must be spent come hell or high water for a bicycle path" (αμέτι: 11700 hits on Google)
  
• θέλει αμέτι μουχαμέτι accusative NOUN OR να VERB, "he wants, ameti moukhameti, NOUN/ to VERB" (θέλει/ήθελε αμέτι: 122 hits on Google)
  
• βάλθηκε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has set himself ameti moukhameti to..." (βάλθηκε αμέτι: 4 hits on Google)
  
• το έχει αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has it ameti moukhameti to..." (έχει/είχε αμέτι: 11 hits on Google)
  
• το έχει βάλει αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has set it ameti moukhameti to..." (έβαλε/'βαλε/έχει βάλει/είχε βάλει αμέτι: 3021 hits on Google)
  

Using αμέτι μουχαμέτι with θέλω "to want" can be explained with an adverbial meaning: "he wants, bloodymindedly, a raise"; Η Ντόρα ήθελε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να πάει για τις υπογραφές, "Dora wanted, bloodymindedly, to go get the signatures". And that use of θέλω can be traced back to quotations of the warcry: αμέτι Μουχαμέτι, θα μπούμε στο Μεσολόγγι "Nation of Muhammad! We shall enter Messolonghi" > ήθελαν «αμέτι Μουχαμέτι» να μπούνε στο Μεσολόγγι "they wanted 'Nation of Muhammad!' to enter Messolonghi" > "they wanted, bloodymindedly, to enter Messolonghi."

The same holds for βάλθηκε, "he set himself/herself": Υπουργός τότε ο πολλά βαρύς και όχι Βασίλης Κοντογιαννόπουλος […], ο οποίος βάλθηκε αμέτι μου χαμέτι μου να μεταρρυθμίσει την Παιδεία, "The minister at the time was the dour-as-black-coffee Vasilis Kontogiannopoulos […] who set himself, bloodymindedly, to reform Education" (blacksad)

But the main use with a verb is with and το έχει βάλει "he has set it"—with το έχει "he has it" (18) trailing far behind:

• (18) το είχεν αμέτ Μωαμέτ, να γίνη δήμαρχος, "he had it amet Moamet to become mayor."
  
• Ο Υπουργός Δημοσίων Έργων […] το έβαλε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να τον εκτρέψει, "The minister of Public Works has set it ameti moukhameti to derail him."

These instances are not adverbs: ??"he had it bloodymindedly to become mayor", ??"he set it bloodymindedly to derail him".

What these expressions do sound like though, is (το) είχε σκοπό να..., το 'βαλε σκοπό να... (έχει/είχε σκοπό: 1,021,000 hits on Google; έβαλε/'βαλε/έχει βάλει/είχε βάλει σκοπό: 135,600 hits on Google), "has/sets purpose to = intends to". In other words, αμέτι μουχαμέτι is behaving, in its usage after βάζω and έχω, like the noun σκοπός, "purpose"—which means that αμέτι μουχαμέτι has been reanalysed as a noun.

Other nouns have already fitted into this template: έχει/είχε καημό να "sorrow = yearning to" (4340 hits), έχει/είχε βάλει καημό να (2 hits); έχει/είχε άχτι να "spite to" (534 hits), έχει/είχε βάλει άχτι να (4 hits). There would be a simple reason of analogy for αμέτι μουχαμέτι to fit this noun template: it looks like a neuter noun. In fact, αμέτι μουχαμέτι > ümmet-i Muhammed looks like the neuter noun άχτι "spite" < ahd "oath, promise". And άχτι is primarily used with the verb έχω "have" and βγάζω "take out".

Unlike σκοπός, καημός, and άχτι, the expression αμέτι μουχαμέτι is mostly associated, so Google has it, with βάζω "set"—particularly with the perfect το έχει βάλει (1940 of the 3020 hits). One explanation for that is another analogy—with βάζω όρκο "to set an oath = to swear" (and not *έχω όρκο): ümmet-i Muhammed was understood to be an oath, explicitly so in (10). But that does not explain by itself why βάζω "set" was associated with an adverb "bloodymindedly": "he set it bloodymindedly" doesn't quite make sense.

(17) provides one ambiguous context which explains this reanalysis: ο Αλικιάδης είχεν απόφασιν, “Αμέτ Μουαμέτ”, να βάλη τη δουλειά εμπρός, "Alikiadis had a decision, bloodymindedly, to go ahead with the venture" (adverb) > "Alikiadis had a decision, an 'Amet Mouamet', to go ahead with the venture" (noun). In other words, αμέτι μουχαμέτι was reanalysed as a noun in apposition with "decision"—another word for "decision". The punctuation, if it is Papadiamantis', supports that—αμέτι μουχαμέτι was still more like an interjection than an adverb, and its separate intonation makes it look like apposition.

Maybe, but the reanalysis looks unconvincing to me: appositions are a bit too learnèd to be plausible here. The best I can come up with is the construction έβαλε να... "he set out to": έβαλε να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set out to make coffee". Combined with αμέτι μουχαμέτι, the construction becomes έβαλε, αμέτι μουχαμέτι, να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set out bloodymindedly to make coffee", which can be reanalysed as "he set a purpose to make coffee". Once that reanalysis happened, the clitic object could be added in, by analogy:

• έβαλε σκοπό να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set a purpose to make coffee" = "he intended to make coffee"
  
• το 'βαλε σκοπό να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set it a purpose to make coffee" = "he intended to make coffee"
  
• το 'βαλε όρκο να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set it an oath to make coffee" = "he swore he'd make cofee"
  
• έβαλε, αμέτι μουχαμέτι, να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set out, bloodymindedly, to make coffee" > έβαλε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set a bloodyminded intent to make coffee"
  
• το 'βαλε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να φτιάξει καφέ, "he set it a bloodyminded intent to make coffee"—by analogy with το 'βαλε σκοπό and το 'βαλε όρκο

We may not need to find an ambiguous sentence to explain το 'βαλε αμέτι μουχαμέτι. It may merely be an analogy straight from το 'βαλε όρκο "he set it an oath" and το 'βαλε σκοπό, with αμέτι μουχαμέτι sounding like a noun to replace όρκο and σκοπό, but as a conceptual leap rather than a shift latent in context.

At any rate, αμέτι μουχαμέτι is acting like the noun σκοπό "purpose" in the βάζω/έχω … να construction—but the noun analysis has not undergone further extension. αμέτι μουχαμέτι is not used in the contexts that σκοπός is:

• Ο σκοπός είναι να δούμε νέες ιδέες, "the intention is for us to see new ideas"; *το αμέτι μουχαμέτι είναι να δούμε νέες ιδέες
  
• Έχει καλό σκοπό, "he has good intentions"; *έχει καλό αμέτι μουχαμέτι
  
• Η θεωρία του σκοπού της ζωής, "the theory of the purpose of life"; *η θεωρία του αμετιού μουχαμετιού της ζωής
  
• Έρανος με σκοπό να αγοραστεί δορυφόρος, "a fundraiser with the intention of buying a satellite"; *έρανος με αμέτι μουχαμέτι να αγοραστεί δορυφόρος
  

Using αμέτι μουχαμέτι as the noun "purpose" in general sounds absurd for now. But in Turkish, "he set it Nation of Muhammad to make coffee" sounds absurd. (Try it out: Kahve yapmak için, ümmet-i Muhammed o yerleştirilir. It would be less absurd, if I actually knew any Turkish...) Syntactic change is possible, if people see a point in it; and we can't rule out future extension of the construction, along the path it has started. ...Read more

αμέτι μουχαμέτι, "Come Hell or High Water"

As I alluded to in the previous post, this post is about how the Ottoman phrase ümmet-i Muhammed, "Nation of Muhammad", turned into the Modern Greek expression αμέτι μουχαμέτι, "come hell or high water".

The material for this post is taken from the Magnificent Nikos Sarantakos' Blog—as much of the material on this blog is. The expression was brought up in an earlier, inconclusive post by Sarantakos, with help by the Ottomanist Diver of Sinks. But the expression has recently been given a magisterial treatment by Vasilis Orfanos. To trace the development of the expression, Orfanos made use of several sources, including writings by Muslim speakers of Greek—who were how the expression got into Greek to begin with.

The expression appears to have undergone a shift in analysis, helped along by Greek-speakers who no longer understood Turkish. The difficulty is in working out when exactly the shift happened: the texts don't tell us unambiguously—precisely because the shift relied on ambiguity to take place, as a metonymic change. That's a question I'll try to explore in a followup post.

But let's start with how the modern expression is used, before we go back to the early 1800s.

The Modern Greek usage of αμέτι μουχαμέτι is as an adverbial phrase, meaning "perforce, at any cost, done with stubborn insistence." It conveys a negative attitude towards the person insisting, although Orfanos has noticed that it has started being used positively. (His example is from a deputy minister's interview on the radio.) It is usually used with a light verb, whose subject is the person insisting:

• θέλει αμέτι μουχαμέτι accusative NOUN OR να VERB, "he wants, ameti moukhameti, NOUN/ to VERB"
  
• το έχει αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has it ameti moukhameti to..."
  
• το έχει βάλει αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has set it ameti moukhameti to..."
  
• βάλθηκε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να... "he has set himself ameti moukhameti to..."

The phrase is colloquial, but in wide use; Orfanos has gathered the following examples from the recent press (only the last is a web-only publication):

• Το 'βαλαν αμέτι-μουχαμέτι, αργά ή γρήγορα θα συνέβαινε, δεν συνέβη τη μία, δεν συνέβη την επομένη, συνέβη τη μεθεπομένη. "They set it ameti moukhameti: it would happen sooner or later. It didn't happen the first time or the second; it did happen the third."
  
• Η Ντόρα ήθελε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να πάει για τις υπογραφές. "[Politician] Dora [Bakoyannis] wanted ameti moukhameti to go and get the signatures.
  
• Ο Υπουργός Δημοσίων Έργων […] το έβαλε αμέτι μουχαμέτι να τον εκτρέψει. "The minister of Public Works set out ameti moukhameti to derail him."
  
• Τα 1.280.000 ευρώ πρέπει να γίνουν, αμέτι μουχαμέτι, ποδηλατόδρομος, αλλιώς θα τα χάναμε. "The 1.28 million euros must be spent ameti moukhameti for a bicycle path; otherwise we'll lose them."

The phrase is almost always now αμέτι μουχαμέτι, although Orfanos has noted a couple of instances of αμέτη μουαμέτη and αμέτ μουαμέτ (which are earlier attested variants.) The phrase αμέτι μουχαμέτι is quite opaque to Greek speakers now; Sarantakos notes that speakers often reanalyse it as αμέτι μου χαμέτι "my ameti khameti", or even αμέτι μου χαμέτι μου "my ameti, my khameti"—with khameti just as as opaque as ameti. Orfanos has noted it go even further online, dropping the seeming possessives and ending up as αμέτι χαμέτι, or garbling μουχαμέτι as αμέτι μω χαμέτι or αμέτι μουμ χαμέτι.

It was always clear what moukhameti meant: Μουχαμέτης was the colloquial rendering of Muhammad in Greek—although now that few Greek speakers know any Muslims, Muhammad for them has retreated to the Puristic safety of Μωάμεθ. An indirect confirmation is given by commenter LandS: the Constantinopolitans he has heard pronounce the expression as αμέτιμουhαμέτι, with the [h] of Turkish Muhammed. Orfanos finds the same [h] in the Greek–French dictionary by Ipitis (see end of this post).

So it was clear that the phrase is Muslim—and presumably Ottoman Turkish in origin; but it wasn't clear what it meant. Ameti Muhammed, we can be reasonably sure, is not how the expression started off in Turkish. The Persian loan amed "he came" was used to mean"arrival; income; import", as Tasos Kaplanis found; so Amed Muhammed could mean "Muhammad is coming"—if we assume that Turkish-speakers had completely forgotten how the syntax of their own language worked. But, as Diver of Sinks concludes, that is hardly a plausible explanation.

Unfortunately, Greek dictionaries don't check their Turkish particularly carefully when giving etymologies; so a phantom Turkish word amet has ended up in the Triantaphyllides Institute Dictionary's etymology. Several etymologies were proposed in the discussion of the first post:

• amet muhabbet, "(ghost word) friendly chat" (?!) (Triantaphyllides Institute)
  
• adet-i Muhammed, "custom of Muhammad" (Diver of Sinks, cited in Sarantakos' first post, though he admits never seeing such an expression)
  
• adet-i mukaddem "longstanding custom", "legal precedent" (Diver of Sinks: a commonplace expression, which may have been conflated with the actual etymology)
  
• med Muhammed "extension, Muhammad" (Sarantakos, trying to explain an earlier form of the expression, μετ Μουχαμέτ; Nikiplos, reinterpreting it as "lineage of Muhammad")
  
• meded-i Muhammed "aid of Muhammad" (Diver of Sinks correcting Sarantakos, and unconvinced by Nikiplos' proposal; med is a rare and learnèd word)
  
• Albanian me Muhammedi "with Muhammad" (Ilefoufoutos, not confidently either)
  

But we will go with ümmet-i Muhammed "Nation of Muslims", given in the 2nd edition of the Babiniotis dictionary, and before it in Pamboukis' Turkish lexicon of Modern Greek (Παμπούκης Ι.Τ. 1988. Τουρκικό λεξιλόγιο της νέας ελληνικής, Vol. 1, ed. Κ. Γ. Κασίνης, Athens: Παπαζήσης, p. 152.) Sarantakos' first post was inconclusive, which is why commentors were still suggesting other explanations, although "Nation of Muslims" was accepted as the likeliest. It was Orfanos' post, with its extensive examples, that swayed readers to accept it as the etymology.

ümmet is how the expression shows up at its earliest, as Orfanos found, as ουμέτι and ιμέτι (since Modern Greek, unlike Attic, Albanian, and Turkish, does not have an [y] sound). But ümmet sounds nothing like αμέτι, so some word must have intervened to lead Greek speakers astray. The earliest users of the expression that Orfanos found were either Muslims, or Ottoman subjects well acquainted with Turkish (Pontians); but αμέτι was already being used in song in 1825. The possible interference on ümmet to produce ameti include:

• adet-i mukaddem "longstanding custom", "legal precedent" (Diver of Sinks; a possibility, since Ottoman legal precedent would have seem as unreasonable insistence to Christian Ottoman subjects—but that implies that the Greek speakers who mangled the expression understood legal Ottoman Turkish just fine, which seems odd to me.)
  
• meded-i Muhammed "aid of Muhammad" (Diver of Sinks; would explain the attested old variant μετ Μουχαμέτ, but not ameti; at any case, Muslims call on Allah's aid, not Muhammad's.)
  
• αμέτε "go on!" (Commenter Άναυδος ["Speechless"], very tentatively—so tentatively, he may not have realised he was proposing it; but I find the notion compelling. Tasos Kaplanis liked it too.)
  
• The proper name Ahmed (Commenter Strabo of Amasea—and independently Fauriel, who rendered the expression in French as Ahmet! Mahomet!, in 1825. Diver of Sinks had rejected the possibility, since he has never seen the two names of Ahmad and Muhammad together.)
  
• Rhyme with (Μουχ)αμέτη "Muhammad" (Orfanos, and the temptation to make the alien warcry into a singsong rhyme is the most plausible explanation.)
  
• Μα το Μουχαμέτη "By Muhammad!" (Orfanos, to explain not the sound of αμέτι μουχαμέτι, but the semantics it has picked up, as a commitment to do something.)

Orfanos in his treatise goes through sources available through Google (including the Anemi digital library of Modern Greek Studies and the Open Archives federated search of Greek digital libraries); he supplemented these with visits to the library of the City of Herakleion and of the University of Crete at Rethymnon. What is notable about his survey is that it includes examples from clearly Muslim Greek, in which the expression had its original meaning.

I'm using Orfanos' examples for the same purpose as he did, to illustrate how the change happened. There's 19 of them, and I'm going to just list them here, with commentary. But I'm going to delay tracing what happened overall till a later post.

(1) Poem on the birth of the prophet Muhammad, translation from the Turkish by a Cretan Muslim (18th century):
Τον κύριο παρακάλεσαν να κάμη μερχαμέτι
Και να τους κάμη ολουνούς του Μουχαμέτ’ ουμμέτι
They begged the Lord to show compassion,
and to make them all Moukhamet's oumeti.

This is the literal meaning of ümmet-i Muhammad as "members of the Muslim community", and the expression is fully assimilated into the Greek of the poem: ουμμέτι has been borrowed as a noun, and Μουχαμέτ' is preceded by a genitive article, so that του Μουχαμέτ’ ουμμέτι is syntactically Greek (although the word order is still copied across from Turkish).

(2) Folk song on the destruction of the cathedral of Trebizond. (So described by Papadopoulos-Kerameus, but this is clearly a written poem, with Puristic in it.) (Cathedral destroyed 1665; manuscript written 1811):
το βρωμερόν του [στόμα] άνοιξεν [ο μουφτής] και τον υιόν του κράζει·
«Γλήγορα δράμε στο τσαρσί, τους Τούρκους όλους λάλει·
μικροί μεγάλοι, όλοι τους –­ ουμέτι Μουαμέτη –­
ας δράμουν στην μητρόπολι να κάμωμεν το φέτι».
ευθύς αυτοί, σαν τἄκουσαν, μετά χαράς πηδούσι·
ωσάν θηρία άγρια τρέχουν και πιλαλούσι.
καβαλλικεύει και αυτός έτζι δαιμονισμένος,
φωνάζοντας «Να δράμετε, του Μωαμέτη γένος».
[The mufti] open his filthy [mouth] and called his son:
"Quickly run to the market, tell all the 'Turks' [Muslims]:
young and old, all of them—oumeti Mouameti—
should run to the cathedral so we can subjugate it."
Immediately on hearing this they gladly leap,
they run and rush like savage beasts.
He too rode his horse, possessed,
shouting: "Run, nation of Muhammad."

The poem renders ümmet-i Muhammed in both Turkish and Greek, so its author knew what the expression meant in Turkish. This is the first instance of ümmet-i Muhammed as a war cry.

(3) Alipashiad, a poem written in praise of Ali Pasha by the Muslim Hatzi Sekhretis (Haxhi Shehreti) (before 1817):
Αλήπασας σαν τ’ άνοιξε και βλέπει το φερμάνι,
Λίγο γκιδέρι ’ς την καρδιά αρχίνησε και βάνει.
«Ορίστε, λεγ’ Αλήπασας, ιμέτι Μουχαμέτη,
Χαΐρι δεν εχούμε ’μεις εφέτ’ απ’ το ντουβλέτι.»
When Ali Pasha opened and saw the firman,
he had a little sorrow in his heart:
"See," Ali Pasha says, "imeti Moukhameti,
we're not seeing any joy from the government this year!"

Clearly this has nothing to do with stubborness; Ali Pasha is figuratively addressing the Nation of Muhammad (ümmet-i Muhammed), his fellow Muslims, and Leake, in paraphrasing the poem, says that "Alý exclaims on receiving this answer, 'We have no satisfaction this year from the government'."
To make sense of the use of ümmet-i Muhammed, Orfanos refers to Kieffer & Bianchi's 1850 French–Turkish dictionary: «امّت محمّد يوقم ummeti mouhhamed ioqmi. N’y a-t-il plus de religion mahométane? (Cri de détresse ou de révolte.)» (That is: ümmet-i Muhammed yokmı? "Is there no nation of Muhammad?" (Cry of distress or revolt). Or, as Orfanos puts it, "There goes our faith! There are no proper Muslims left!": as the Alipashiad goes on to say,
να ξέρετε μας μάγεψαν της Φράντζας οι διαβόλοι
και γνώσι δεν απόμεινε του βασιλιά στην Μπόλι.
"You should know that the devils of France have put a spell on us,
and there is no wisdom left with the king in the City [= the Sultan in Istanbul]."
There is evidence for a similar expression addressed by Muslims to Christians in folksong: "What are you doing, Christians! Are you not baptised?" (i.e. you are acting like pagans, you are acting indecently); Αν είστε βαφτισμένοι! "if you are baptised!" is still used as an exclamation of incredulity in Crete. Cf. the use of losing my religion in the Southern U.S., which I commented on with relation to slang.gr's Είδε το Χριστό φαντάρο "He saw Christ as a conscript": in a religious world, losing religion truly was considered equivalent to going insane.

(4) Alipashiad:
Τ’ ασκέρι του Βελήπασα πήρε να γονατίση,
’Σ τον ντιν ντουσμάνη πολεμά τον [sic] πλάτη να γυρίση.
Κι ο Σιλικτάρης φώναξε· “ιμέτι, Μωχαμέτη,
’Σ τον ντιν ντουσμάνη σήμερα να κάμωμεν γαϊρέτι.
Να βγούμε μ’ άσπρο πρόσωπον σ’ ετούτο το σεφέρι,
Απάνω τους να πέσωμεν με το σπαθί ’σ το χέρι.
Veli Pasha's army was starting to capitulate,
it was trying to turn its back to the infidel enemy.
And the adjutant cried: "imeti, Mokhameti,
today against the infidel enemy we shall show endurance.
We shall acquit ourselves bravely in this expedition,
and fall on them with swords in our hands."

This is the usual war cry appealing to the faithful, rather than Ali Pasha's rhetorical agnosticism.
(Among the Turcisms of Haxhi Shehreti, I'd like to point out σεφέρι "war, expedition". English has the same word for expedition, from Arabic. Via Swahili. As safari.)
In both Haxhi Shehreti's examples, ümmet is rendered as imeti instead of the expected umeti. Commenter Mikhalios explains this by appealing to Haxhi Shehreti's Albanian background: Albanian /y/ is rendered in the Greek of Epirus as /i/. Hence gryka "dale", which appears as the local place name Γκρίκα/Γκρύκα /ɡrika/, and Ömer Vrioni, who Haxhi Shehreti refers to as Ιμέρ Πασάς "Imer Pasha", via Albanian Ymer. Haxhi Shehreti used /imeti muxameti/ in Greek, because he said O ymmeti Muhammed in Albanian.
…And let's make sure you get what happened with Ömer/Omer/Ymer Vrioni:

• Turkish has /œ y u i/. Albanian has /y/ but not /œ/. Greek has neither /y/ nor /œ/.
  
• The Arabic name 'Umar, Omar ends up in Turkish as Ömer /œmer/, because of vowel harmony.
  
• Greek has no rounded front vowels; a medial Turkish /œ/ is rendered as /jo/: Karagöz > Καραγκιόζης /karagjozis/. I can't find a good example of a Turkish word starting with /œ/ ending up in Modern Greek, but rendering it as /o/ was clearly an option. So Ομέρ /omer/.
  
• Albanian does not have /œ/, but it had the option of rendering the mid front rounded vowel as a mid front vowel, /o/, or a rounded front vowel, /y/. It picked the rounded vowel: Ymer /ymer/.
  
• But the Greek of Epirus borrows Albanian /y/ as /i/, and not as /u, ju/ as in the rest of Greek. So Ομέρ in the Alipashiad is Ιμέρ /imer/.
  

(5) Ioannes Nathanail, Ευβοϊκά (1858, incident occuured in 1821):
μετά δε την σύσκεψιν αναστάντες ο Ομέρ Βρυών Πασάς και ο Ομέρμπεης ίππευσαν και περιήρχοντο [στη Χαλκίδα] από οικίας εις οικίαν μετά θυροκρούστου· και ο μεν έκρουεν την θύρα, οι δε έσωθεν απεκρίνοντο “κιμ ντιρ”· ο δε έξωθεν ”αμέτ Μωαμέτ, αύριον να ήσθε έτοιμοι, θα πάμε εις τα Βρυσάκια κατά των κλεφτών”.
After their meeting Ömer Vrioni Pasha and Ömer Bey rode their horses, and wandered from house to house with a door knocker. The door knocker knocked on the door, and those inside would answer: Kimdir? [Who is it?] Those outside said: "amet Moamet, be ready tomorrow, we will go to Vrysakia against the brigands."

Ömer is literally answering the question "who is there" with the answer "[we are of the] Nation of Muhammad", namely, "we are Muslims". This is not necessarily a warcry; but note that forty years on, Nathanail has already garbled ümmet-i Muhammed into amet Moamet—so he has turned the expression into ameti muxameti, even if the "hell or high water" meaning isn't there yet.

(6) Folk song on Georgakis and Farmakis, published by Claude Fauriel (1825):
Ένας πασάς αγνάντευεν πέρα από του Σέκου.
Ψηλήν φωνήν εσήκωσεν· «Αμέτη, Μωαμέτη!
Πιάστε τον τόπον δυνατά, ζώστε το μοναστήρι.»
A pasha was keeping watch beyond Sekos.
He cried out with a shrill voice: "Ameti Moameti!
Fortify the place boldly: surround the monastery."

Rendered by Fauriel as Ahmet! Mahomet!: Mais un pacha était en observation de l’autre côté de Sékos – «Ahmet! Mahomet!» se met-il à crier d’ une voix haute; – emparez-vous bravement des postes; entourez le monastère. This is the first evidence that someone did not understand the expression, and it may not just have been the visiting Frenchman.

(7) Letter by Field Marshal Theodoros Kolokotronis to the government (1827):
η έφοδος αύτη των εχθρών […] οίτινες τυφοίς όμμασι, και με το αμέτ μουχαμέτ ώρμησαν κατά των ιδικών μας, μη δειλιάσαντες ολοτελώς τον θάνατον όπου ελάμβανον.
This attack by the enemies […] who with blind eyes and an "Amet Moukhamet" rushed onto our men, not at all fearing the death they were being dealt.

Clearly a reference to the warcry, now nominalised.

(8) Lambros Koutsonikas, General History of the Greek Revolution (1863, events of 1821–1827)
[…] αλαλάζοντες δε εφώναζαν οι βάρβαροι μετ Μουχαμέτ εμπρός (δια της ισχύος του Μωάμεθ) και έτρεχαν ως οι τετυφλωμένοι χοίροι, χωρίς να βλέπουν έμπροσθέν των.
and the barbarians screamed, shouting "met Moukhamet onwards" (through the power of Muhammad), and ran like blinded swine, without looking in front of them.

Here and in the following, the expression is a war cry, but in the variant form met muxamet. The variant led commenters to speculate on alternate derivations for the expression, but they have not come up again since, and may well be a mishearing by Koutsonikas.

(9) Koutsonikas (1863, events of 1821–1827)
[Οι Τούρκοι] ώρμησαν ως σμίνος επί του μεγάλου πύργου και εφώναξαν «ορέ ποιος είναι εδώ μέσα» οι δε απεκρίθησαν, «Σουλιώται είναι ορέ τούρκοι με τον Κουτσονίκα, και αν αγαπάτε κοπιάστε». Ακούσαντες δε οι βάρβαροι εφώναξαν «Μετ Μουχαμέτ, επάνω τους» και αμέσως ώρμησαν κατά του πύργου.
[The Turks] swarmed at the great tower, and shouted: "Hey! Who's in here?" And they replied: "Hey, Turks! It's Souliotes under Koutsonikas here; and if you feel up to it, come over." When the barbarians heard this, they shouted: "Met Moukhamet, attack them," and they rushed at the tower immediately.

Again, explicitly a war cry.

(10) Folk song Siege of Messolonghi (published 1874, events of 1825)
Όλοι τους ωρκισθήκανε αμέτι Μουχαμέτη,
στο Μεσολόγγι να εμβούν, να κάμουν κιαμέτι .
Ημέρα των Χριστουγεννών προ τού να ξημερώση·
Αλλάχ, Αλλάχ! εφώναξαν, κη έκαμαν το γιουρούσι·
They all swore Ameti Moukhameti
to enter Messolonghi and cause havoc.
Before the dawn of Christmas Day,
they shouted "Allah! Allah!" and launched the raid.

Legrand's translation: Tous ont juré par Mahomet d’entrer dans Missolongi pour y faire de déluge. Le jour de Noel, avant l’aurore, il ont crié Allah! Allah! Et ont donné l’assaut.
This example has been published late, so it does not necessarily mean the reanalysis to "at any cost" had happened in 1825. But it does allow both interpretations: they swore, (saying) "Nation of Muhammad!"—that they would enter Messolonghi; or they swore that at any cost they would enter Messolonghi. Orfanos highlights this and the next instances as the first time when the war cry conveys an explicit undertaking to do something—which is necessary for the subsequent interpretation of unreasonable insistence. Legrand's translation, "they all swore by Muhammad", is clearly guesswork.

(11) Cretan folksong on the death of the rebel Xopateras (1828):
κι εφτά αγαδάκια ήσφαξε, τσι κεφαλές τως παίρνει.
Στο Γιόφυρο τσι τσίτωσε κι έκαμε μπαϊράκι
κι οι Τούρκοι τσι θωρούσανε κι επίνανε φαρμάκι.
«Σούμπα Αλλάχ» φωνιάζανε κι «Αμέτη Μουχαμέτη»
να πα’ να πχιάσου ν-το μ-παπά, να ησυχάσει η Κρήτη.
He killed seven lords, he took of their heads.
He impaled them in Giofyros [near Herakleion] and raised his banner.
The Turks saw them and were envenomed.
"Glory to Allah" they cried and "Ameti Moukhameti":
they would go seize the priest, to calm Crete down.

Literally, these are just war cries in response to the Christian massacre; but Orfanos notes that this too sounds in context like the modern meaning: "at any cost, they would go seize the priest".

(12) Stefanos Xenos, Η Κιβδηλεία, Vol. 1, London, p. 11 (1859)
αλλά ο Γαρδικιότης είναι Αμέτ Μουαμέτ κατά του στραβού, και κατά βεβαιώτητα μας δίδει δεν θα τον αφύση προς ικανοποίησιν αυτού εις Σμύρνην τον στραβόν
But Gardikiotis is Amet Mouamet opposed to the blind man, and he assures us that he will not give the blind man the satisfaction of remaining in Smyrna

Orfanos believes this is an intermediate sense between the war cry and the notion of unreasonable insistence: where the modern use is adverbial, this is adjectival, and it means "to be a sworn enemy of, to have spite towards". Tasos Kaplanis however thinks this is the modern usage, unmodified: "he is, come hell or high water, against the blind man."

(13) Report in the newspaper Aeon on the destruction of Arkadi monastery (1867)
Ο Μουσταφάς, περικυκλωμένος υπό των λοιπών πασάδων, ομιλεί, αφρίζει και με το αλβανικόν του πείσμα κραυγάζει. “Αμέτ-Μουαμέτ θα τους κάψουμε!”
Mustafa, surrounded by the other pashas, speaks, foams at the mouth, and shouts with his Albanian obstinacy: "Amet-Mouamet we will burn them down!"

A war cry, but straightforwardly interpreted as a commitment, "at any cost". Stubbornness is the ethnic stereotype in Modern Greece of Arvanites; I have no reason to doubt the same stereotype was extended to their Muslim fellow–Albanian-speakers.

(14) Cretan folksong on the death of the rebel Pavlos Dedidakis (1867):
οι Τούρκοι απού το φόβο τους, αλάχ! αλάχ! φωνιάζου,
το Μουχαμέτη για να ρθη να τσοι βουηθήση κράζου·
Ρεσίτ Πασάς εφώνιαξεν αμέτη μουχαμέτη!
Όπου κι αν επολέμησα δεν είδ’ ετσά σικλέτη.
The Turks were so scared, they cried "Allah! Allah!"
They shouted for Muhammad to come help them;
Reshid Pasha shouted: "Ameti Moukhameti!
Wherever I have fought, I have never seen such sorrow!"

Orfanos notes that as the power balance between Muslims and Christians shifted in Crete, ümmet-i Muhammed in Christian folksong went from a show of strength to a cry of despair from the now weakened Muslims. I don't see such pleading in the 1828 Xopateras song, but it is clear in this song—along with the misconstrual of Muhammad's role as an intercessor: the Christians were on the rise, notwithstanding their defeat in the 1866 rebellion, and no longer had to care about details of Islamic theology. This pleading, of course, cannot have given rises to αμέτι μουχαμέτι indicating obstinacy: that sense predates this.

(15) Song about Marigo Lambrakis in Archanes, Crete (1897):
Και τότε φόβος τσοι ’πιασε μέσα εις την καρδία.
Ο Σουβαρής εφώναξε Αμέτη Μουχαμέτη
των Αρχανών ο πόλεμος δεν έχει μερχαμέτι
Then fear seized them in their hearts.
The messenger shouted "Ameti Moukhameti,
the war of Archanes has no mercy."

As with the 1867 song, this is now a cry of despair rather than a rallying cry.

(16) Cretan song about the death of Tryfitsos (1897):
και οι μπουρμάδες λέγανε αμέτι μου χαμέτι
και ο Τρυφίτσος είν κιοσές που μας-ε παίζει μπέτι
And the converts [= Muslim Cretans] said: "Ameti mou khameti
and Tryfitsos is the one who is firing at our chests."

Same story as the previous two songs. Whoever transcribed the song (Sarantakos doesn't give a citation) did not work out the connection with Muhammad, and split the word up—as many contemporary Greeks do.

(17) Alexandros Papadiamantis, Οι χαλασοχώρηδες (1892)
Αλλά την φοράν ταύτην ο Αλικιάδης είχεν απόφασιν, “Αμέτ Μουαμέτ”, να βάλη τη δουλειά εμπρός. Α! δεν τον εγελούσαν αυτόν με το σήμερα και με το αύριο οι εργολάβοι.
But this time Alikiadis had decided, Amet Mouamet, to go ahead with the venture. Oh, the contractors were not going to get the better of him with their "todays" and "tomorrows".

This is the modern meaning of αμέτι μουχαμέτι, though its pronunciation is still closer to ümmet-i Muhammed.

(18) Alexandros Papadiamantis, Τα δύο τέρατα (1909)
Ο γερο-Μακρής ο Βαβδινός, σεβάσμιος τοκογλύφος, είχε κατέλθει εις τον εκλογικόν αγώνα και το είχεν αμέτ Μωαμέτ, να γίνη δήμαρχος.
Old Makris Vavdinos, a reverend usurer, had entered into the electoral fray and had it amet Moamet to become mayor.

The expression now finally is associated with a verb, το είχε "he had it...", as it is in contempotorary Greek.

(19) Antonios Ipitis, Λεξικόν ελληνο-γαλλικόν και γαλλο-ελληνικόν (Greek–French Dictionary) (1908)
«αμέτι-μουhαμέτι [δημ.] εκ προμελέτης, avec préméditation, ήρθε αμέτι μουhαμέτι να μαλώση = ήλθεν εκ προμελέτης ίνα ερίση»
ameti-mouhameti (vernac.) "with premeditation": he came ameti-mouhameti to fight = "he came with premeditation to conflict"

Explicit confirmation of the generalisation of the expression. Note the Turkish use of [h] rather than [x].

Yes, it's a long list, and I need to take a breather...
...Read more

ξε- in compounds and phrases

This post has been anticipated in comments already anyway; it's the reason why I got the accent of ξέμαγκας wrong.

One reason was given last post: it is much harder to predict where recessive accent goes for the -a(s) inflection than for the other inflections of Modern Greek.

• For masculine and neuter -o(s), feminine -si, and neuter -ma, recessive accent goes to the antepenult: παλιόκοσμος, κουτόχορτο, κεφαλόβρυση, παλιόπραμα
• for -us, feminine -o, neuter -i and other feminine -i, it goes on the penult: προπάππους, τρελοκαμπέρω, παπαδοπαίδι, γκαντεμοτύχη
• for -u and -e(s) it only ever goes on the ultima: ρεβυθοκαφές, ζουζουνοσκατού. (Kaliarda again: "shit-bug = fly")
• But because of mergers in both Ancient and Mediaeval Greek, -a(s) has some recessives go to the antepenult, and some go to the penult. That makes confusion possible.

The second reason, given two posts ago, involves the variability of prepositions. The default in Modern Greek is for accent to be recessive in a preposition–noun compound: παρά + παιδί > παράπαίδι "stepchild". Some prepositions leave the accent alone, in a distinct pattern: παρά + στρατός > παραστρατός "paramilitary".

The real reason why I got the accent of ξέμαγκας wrong is that I'd learned one pattern in my Greek, but not the other.

The recessive accent pattern shown in ξέμαγκας follows the rules inherited from Ancient Greek. (Ancient Greek would still produce *ἐκμάγκας because its -ας was long; but the accent would still be recessive.) And colloquial Modern Greek does have a productive pattern of adding ξε- to nouns, to indicate someone who has stopped being characterised by the noun. If that sounds like an ex-mangas, there's a simple reason for that: ex- and ξέ- are exactly the same prefix historically (kse- < ekse- < ἐκ, ἐξ ek, eks, as I explained a few posts ago.)

There's also a simple reason that I haven't drawn the analogy between ex- and ξέ- before: they are from different registers, and the usage of ξέ- before a noun is unusual: it is typically a verbal prefix, where it has the verbal meaning of "un-" as in "undo". That's why I was glossing ξέμαγκας as "un-mangas"; but un- for nominals in English means "not" more than "formerly" (as in unwell), so the gloss is misleading.

The pattern appears to be productive in colloquial Greek: Nikos Sarantakos brought up ξέπαπας "ex-priest", which is also recessive. But I could find no examples with that meaning in either the Triantaphyllidis Institute dictionary (no surprise there), or slang.gr. ξεμπούρδελο < μπουρδέλο for instance means not "a former brothel", but "a woman who looks like she has come out of a brothel".

I got the accent wrong because the recessive use of ξέ- before nouns, to mean "ex-", is not part of the Greek I've learned. I mean, I recognise it when I see it; but it's not part of my active vocabulary, it would not have occurred to me to coin a new ξέ- compound with a noun. Just a hole I happen to have in my Greek.

But there's a different pattern using ξέ- which I have learned, and that pattern is accent-retaining. slang.gr does have ξεμπράβο "un-bravo!", which is not accented recessively, for different reasons: μπράβο is an interjection, which is being quoted in the compound. I will talk about the different accent in quotative compounds later. That's not the pattern I had learned; but it is related, in that it also quotes what it prefixes.

The pattern is the phrase τι Χ και ξε-Χ;, "what X and un-X?", meaning "what do you mean, 'X?'" or "what's this 'X' crap you're on about?" The point of the expression is to dismiss the noun X that the addressee has used as appropriate or relevant. A similar expression is δεν έχει Χ και ξε-Χ "there's no X and un-X", which has the same point. (Cf. "there's no ifs or buts about it" in English.) And Χ και ξε-Χ can show up on their own as a dismissal in general:

• Καθήστε να διαβάσετε και άστε τα sos και ξε-sos "Sit yourselves down and study, and stop going on about crib notes [never mind the S.O.S. and un-S.O.S]" ("ncs_one", responding to a request for crib notes—which are called in Greek "S.O.S.")
  
• μήτε γνωρίζω τι θα πει Kollo και ξε-Kollo "I don't even know what Kollo and suchlike [Kollo and un-Kollo] means (poem by Napoleon Lapathiotis, 1922)
  
• Nikolas81: Οπα, εχω και'γω το ιδιο w/c kit της Τt ενα χρονο τωρα αλλα δεν μου εχει παρουσιασει κανενα προβλημα, αν οφειλεται σε αστοχια υλικου αφτο μπορει να συμβει και στις καλυτερες οικογενειες..... "Woah: I've had the same w/c kit from Tt for a year, but it hasn't shown any problems. If it's because of a fault in the maerial, well, that can happen even in the best of families."
  ThReSh: αστοχία και ξε αστοχία nikola αλλά αν καεί κάποιος στο χυλό φυσάει και τι γιαούρτι... (Literally) "Fault and Un-Fault, Nikolas, but if someone burns themselves on porridge, they'll blow on yoghurt." (Idiomatically) "It's all very well to talk about 'faults', Nikolas; but once bitten, twice shy" ("ThReSh" responding to "nikolas81")

The construction works by quoting a word the addressee has used; the speaker wants nothing to do with the word, after all. If the speaker is quoting X, and dismissing X and un-X, she can't reaccent un-X as a new word (recessively): she would be assuming linguistic responsibility for that new word. In the construction, "un-X" is still quoting the addressee's use of X. So the accent of X is preserved in the construction.

The most frequent example of the construction is τι μα και ξε-μά, "what do you mean, 'but'"—used to cut off someone raising an objection by saying "but…". At the best of times, you couldn't reaccent "un-but" as *ξέ-μα anyway: prefixing interjections is unheard of, and reaccenting prefixed conjunctions will just make them unrecognisable. (Same goes for ξεμπράβο.) You could argue the same for the following examples, quoting a conjunction and a proper name:

• ο πελάτης έχει πάντα δίκιο όταν - Α, δεν έχει "όταν" και "ξε-όταν". Ο πελάτης έχει πάντα δίκιο. Τελεία! "'The customer is always right, so long as…' Oh, there's no 'so long as' about it! [There is no 'when' and 'un-when'] The customer is always right, full stop!" ("peslac")
  
• Εμ Ίστωρ με αυτά που λες τι απάντηση περίμενες; Αυτά είναι κοτσάνες. Τι Τίτο και ξε-Τίτο μου λες. "Istor, with the stuff you say, what sort of answer were you expecting? That's nonsense. What is this 'Tito' crap you keep talking about? [What 'Tito' and 'un-Tito' are you telling me?]" (Nick the Greek, July 4 2006, 12:26 AM)

And these examples would likely not be accented recessively:

• Τι κομμουνιστές και ξε-κομμουνιστές; Επειδή δηλαδή θα πάω σε μια πορεία που οργανώνουν κομμουνιστές, έγινα κι εγώ κομμουνιστής, άμα δεν το θέλω; "What are you talking about, 'communists'? Because I'm going to protest organised by communists, am I supposed to have become a communist if I choose not to?" ("Thracian Without Jurisdiction")
  
• urba-nick: Τσαμπουκάς ο καιρός σήμερα.Μας έβαλε γκολ απο τα αποδυτήρια. "The weather was aggro today. It kicked a goal against us right from the changing rooms"
  Mikelangelo: Πιο γκολ και ξε-γκολ. Δε μασάμε μια. "What are you talking about, 'goal'? We're of sterner stuff than that now." ("Mikelangelo" responding to "urba-nick")
  
• Στους δρόμους, μερικές μέρες τώρα, γίνεται το έλα να δεις και πολλοί επίσης ασκούν κριτική στην Κυβέρνηση κύριε Μαγκριώτη. Ότι ποια επίταξη και ξε-επίταξη κάνει ο καθένας ό,τι θέλει στην χώρα. "For the past few days, it's been chaos in the streets; and many are criticising the government Mr Mangriotis, saying 'What requisition are you talking about? Everybody in this country does whatever they feel like.'" (Interview, Skai Radio, 2010-09-21)
  

But in these examples, a prime candidate for reaccenting is left with its accent preserved:

• lumoELENA: ελα ρε παιδια ο ηχος είναι αθλιος. Μου πήρε τα αυτιά το βίντεο. Κατεβασε το.......... "Come on guys, the sound is awful. The video has deafened me. Take it off."
  nikiforos1000: τι ηχος και ξε ηχος... ειναι φοβερος εδω ο μαλαμας "What do you mean, 'sound'? Malamas is tremendous in this." ("nikiforos1000" responding to "lumoELENA"; unaccented, but the space in ξε ηχος shows this can't be a recessively accented *ξέηχος: ξε and ήχος are treated as two separate phonetic words)
  
• τί άμμο και ξε-άμμο μου λες τώρα / εδώ το θέμα είναι αν θα πάμε διακοπές, που και πότε "What 'sand' are you talking about? The question is, are we going on holidays, where, and when?" (LIA KALEMIDOU, commenting on a photo of "Ti amo" written on sand)
  
• Τι κρίση και ξε-κρίση; Κρίση μπορείς να έχεις όταν τα πράγματα βαδίζουν με μία στοιχειώδη τάξη και αρχίζει και χάνεται αυτή (η τάξη). "What do you mean, 'crisis'? You have a crisis when things proceed according to a rudimentary sense of order, and that order starts to be lost." (Periklis Vanikiotis, "There will be blood", Marketing Week Online, 2010–10–29)

Compare the made-up Modern, accent-preserving ξε-κρίση "un-crisis" with Ancient recessive ἔκκρισις "separation, secretion", which is the same word etymologically. (κρίσις is etymologically first a separation, then a distinguishing, then a judgement, then a trial, then a deciding point.)

So, I knew the Χ και ξε-Χ pattern, which is accent-preserving; I did not know the use of ξε-Χ to mean "ex-X"; and I accented ξεμαγκας according to the former pattern. They are semantically related, after all. But thanks to Nikos Sarantakos for exposing the gap in my command of accentuation, and launching me down this path. Which is not done yet: there will be at least two more posts of slang.gr data.

As an added bonus,

How does the Χ και ξε-Χ expression work?

Well, if the addressee's use of X is being ridiculed, and the speaker denigrates both X and un-X, maybe the speaker's saying that both X and the opposite of X are irrelevant—in other words, the entire scale of comparison of X, the entire mental framework, is inapplicable.

Nice try, though overintellectualised, but wrong; but remember, ξε- is a verbal prefix above all, and it means not un- as in unwell, but un- as in undo.

What it is referring to is a Greek convention of juxtaposing verbs with their opposites, to indicate repeated, futile activity. The notion is that if you do X, then do the opposite, undoing X, you're going to have to redo X, over and over—and that this is a waste of time. ράβω–ξηλώνω "I sew and unravel" is the canonical example; and it is applied very far from knitting:

• Ένα τραγούδι έγραψα για σένα. / Μια μελωδία, ετοιματζίδικο κλισέ. / Ράβω και ξηλώνω μέχρι να μου βγει. / Μια απλή μελωδία από Μι. "I wrote a song for you: a tune, a tossed off cliché. I sew and unravel until I can get it out, a simple tune in E." (Song lyric, Kostas Lemonidis)
  
• Γι'αυτό ρώτησα για να μην ράβω-ξηλώνω αν πχ οι τελευταίοι catalyst υποστηρίζουν 1680Χ1050..., "So that's why I asked, so I don't keep sewing and unravelling, whether the latest Catalyst models support 1680×1050 resolution." ("Fonzi", querying on setting up a PC monitor)
  
• Από αντιπροσωπία πόσο περίπου θα πάει μαζί με τοποθέτηση, ξέρει κανείς?? (δεν είμαι για να ράβω και να ξηλώνω αυτόν τον καιρό) "Does anyone know how much it will cost approximately from a dealership, including installation? (I'm not prepared to go sewing and unravelling at this time.)" ("Alestros", on installing a ceiling light in a VW)

The expression is generalised by turning it into the template "Χ και ξε-Χ", where X is a verb, and ξε-X, undoing X, is the opposite action; for example,

• φίλε, κάνεις τόσο κόπο, γράφεις ξεγράφεις απλά και μόνο για να πείσεις εμένα και τον εαυτό σου πως φταίει το ΕΔΑΔ;.. Στο λέω ξανά, ειλικρινά δεν με ενδιαφέρει ποιος φταίει! "Friend, you're expending so much effort, you write and unwrite, just so you can convince me and yourself that it's the European Human Rights Tribunal's fault? I'm telling you again, I honestly don't care whose fault it is!" ("Kyriacos")
  
• Της ΦΑΚ που λέει και ξελέει μόνη της πως ζει στην γυάλα της και πιστεύει πως σε τέτοιους ζοφερούς καιρούς με την επίθεση που δέχετε ο λαός από ΕΕ-ΔΝΤ-Κεφάλαιο το πανεπιστήμιο μπορεί να έχει ένα πιο ανθρώπινο μέλλον. "The Independent Student Movement, which says and unsays [keeps saying] of its own accord that it lives in a bubble, and which believes in such miserable times, with the people being attacked by the EU, the IMF and Capital, that the University can have a more humane future." ("Liakos13"; but the more usual meaning of λέω και ξελέω is "I say and then unsay, I contradict myself")
  
• Από αυτό που είπε, άρχισε ο παπάς να διαβάζει και να “ξεδιαβάζει” σ’ένα βιβλίο, και όπως διάβαζε, ο βράχος ανοιγόταν σιγά σιγά μέχρι που ανοίχτηκε εντελώς και εμφανίστηκε ένας βωμός με χρυσές εικόνες αγίων. "Saying that, the priest started reading and unreading in a book, and as he was reading, the rock slowly opened until it opened up completely, and an altar appeared with golden icons of saints." (Translation of short story by Xosé Filgueira Valverde)

There are many instances of "X and un-X" where the activity of X really is undone; that's what tends to be the meaning of φτιάχνω και ξεφτιάχνω "I make and unmake" or most instances of λέω και ξελέω "I say and unsay". But the examples given here have eliminated the "undo" component of the meaning, and are left with the sense of futile repetition. This is common in semantic change ("bleaching"): an expression which has the meaning or connotation of both A and B ends up meaning just B. In the example with "read and unread", even the notion of futility is bleached (because the spell works), and we're left with just repetition.

From "say and unsay" = "keep saying in vain, keep saying without convincing me", it is a short step to "say-and-unsay X, which does not convince me". From there, it's a neat linguistic trick of Greek to drop the verb, and transfer the template to the noun being said. τι Χ και ξε-Χ, after all, has no verb, unlike its English counterpart what do you mean, X?.

• τι Χ; is shorthand for τι εννοείς, Χ; "what do you mean, X?" or τι λες, Χ; "why do you say X?"
• τι Χ και ξε-Χ is similarly an economical way of saying τι λες Χ και ξε-λές Χ; "why you do say-X and unsay-X", i.e. "why do you keep saying X in vain, without convincing me?"
• And ξε- here is still undoing a verb, rather than referring to an ex-noun. The verb just happens to be left out.

If you've read papers I wrote while I was still writing papers (which is highly unlikely), you may recognise this as illocutionary negation, which is a topic I've worked on before in Greek: "I don't deny X, but I deny that you should say X." ...Read more

GTAGE: Losing One's Religion

Today's installment of the Golden Treasury of Anglo–Greek Expressions (GTAGE) takes religion in vain. That does not mean the expressions I'm going through are blasphemous per se—although if taking religion lightly is not your thing, you shouldn't be reading further. If anything, the expressions show how central a role Orthodox Christianity has played in how Greek saw the world and their society, just as Shakespeare's English betrays a lot of popular Catholicism, that was slow in dying in England.

Most of the translations this time around aren't all that jocular, but instead are quite close to the literal meaning; it's the opacity of the idioms, of course, that lends them their humour. But the first instance resorts to an English soundalike:

Aaron, Aaron: Άρον άρον

This is a biblical quotation: ἄρον ἄρον, σταύρωσον αὐτόν "take, take, crucify him!" (John 19:5; English translations uniformly leave it as "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!") The expression is quite opaque now, so the GTAGE compiler could get away with namedropping Moses' brother instead. It is opaque, because ἄρον is no longer the imperative for "take!"

• The present tense of "take, lift" was αἴρω; now it is παίρνω, which is the modern counterpart for ἐπ-αίρω, "to take up, lift up" ( /ep-aírɔː/ > /eˈpero/ > */ˈpero/ > /ˈperno/ : Modern Greek deletes unstressed initial /i, e, o/, and avoids /r, l/ as a present tense ending, adding the less anomalous /n/ after them.)
  
• The imperative which was ἄρον is now πάρε. The ancient imperative of ἐπ-αίρω is ἔπ-αρον, a second aorist (corresponding to the Germanic strong verbs). The second aorist died out and was replaced by the first aorist (corresponding to the Germanic weak verbs). Even if the second aorist stem survived, its inflection did not, and at any rate the aorist imperative endings were matched to the present imperative; so ἐπ-άρε. The initial /e/ becomes unstressed and is deleted, by analogy with the present; so /ˈeparon/ > /eˈpare/ > /ˈpare/.
  
• In addition, Ancient Greek allows "take!" to be used without an object. In Modern Greek, you can only do this with inanimate objects: you can say πάρε to mean "take it" (actually, "take some"—if you're not naming what is taken, it is assumed to be something appropriately nebulous.) But for a human object, you would have to supply a pronoun: ἄρον ἄρον, σταύρωσον αὐτόν "take, take, crucify him" would now be πάρ' τον, πάρ' τον, σταύρωσέ τον "take him, take him, crucify him".

ἄρον ἄρον doesn't make any sense to Modern Greek speakers, and the repeated imperative sounds odd, like some sort of incantation. (For all I know, ἄρον in antiquity may have been more about seizing the moment than literally taking anyway.) So the phrase was reinterpreted to make sense in context. Churchgoers heard "Aron Aron Crucify Him", and concluded that "aron aron" must mean "hurry up", coming from the crowd pressing to see Christ executed—and so with a connotation of an action being forced. The slang.gr definition is:

Said of something happening very quickly, in a great hurry, a great rush and great stress. Said of something that happens on the go, on the fly, in the fast lane, heart beating like a drum, whoosh, etc.

The phrase is not really slang at all, but quite commonplace mainstream Greek; in fact there was a debate on slang.gr on whether the phrase should be included at all. It's presumably not related, but that interpretation is reminiscent of an earlier repetition, at the end of actual Greek incantations (magical papyri and tablets): ταχὺ ταχύ "quickly, quickly!"

That's the only phrase from the liturgy in the list; there's also a reference to the man reading the liturgy:

And if you are priest you will stand in the queue: Κι αν είσαι και παπάς με την αράδα σου θα πάς

Just about literally rendered, but for the affectation so beloved of GTAGE, of overliterally translating και: και literally means "and", but it can be used not only to join two things, but also in front of just one thing, to mean "also" or "even". So, "and if you are and a priest, with your line you will go": that is, "even if you are a priest, you're still going to stand in the queue." So also defined at slang.gr:

An All time classic popular expression used since time immemorial. αράδα as we know is a queue (σειρά). We also know of the respect that villagers for the most part showed their priests (as well as the teacher and the policeman). Often people would give their place to the priest, so he could be served in a timely manner.

So the expression simply means that one must await the suitable time or moment to act, without exception. Even if one is a priest, for instance, he must still wait his turn—let alone a common mortal.

The explanation presupposes a Greek notion of queues, something that does not quite gel with my experience of Hellenism. Now αράδα is a quite old word for "line", which is now limited to typography and as a synonym for "large number of"; "queue" now is σειρά, which is why slang.gr had to gloss it. But σειρά, which is after all the same word as series, has a clear notion of one party following another; αράδα doesn't have that connotation to me. So I suspect αράδα is used to refer to it being one's turn to be served, without there being an single orderly queue in place. Turns are ordered one after the other, even if the petitioners for those turns are not. Note that it's "*your* line (= turn)", not "your place in the line (= queue)".

In a society where Christianity is the default, Christianity can stand in for what is self-evident: if everyone is supposed to be Christian, then Christianity is supposed to be understood by anyone, putting it in the same category as knowing how to walk or how to jump a queue. So not understanding Christianity was not brought up as a badge of free-thinking, but of questionable mental capacity:

He doesn't understand Christ: Δεν καταλαβαίνει Χριστό
I don't know Christ: Δεν ξέρω Χριστό

Compare the Southern US phrase losing my religion, which actually means "being at the end of one's tether"—although when the Southern US rock band REM launched the phrase into a more secular listening public, that's not how the phrase was understood.

The Greek phrases are used to indicate that someone is refusing to understand something, which should be self-evident. Consequently, it means that someone is pig-headed, since what they are refusing to understand (i.e. go along with) is what *you* are proposing is self-evident.

There is a nuance here: the definite article is not used before Christ. So the phrase cannot mean, literally, "he doesn't understand Christ (e.g. what Christ is saying)" or "he is not acquainted with Christ": without an article, Christ is not being treated as a person. Rather, Christ is being treated like a body of knowlegde—just like δεν καταλαβαίνει βιοχημεία "he doesn't understand biochemistry" or δεν ξέρω κολύμπι "I don't know swimming (= how to swim)". So what is not being understood is not Christ himself, but Christ's body of knowledge: Christianity.

That's my interpretation; slang.gr has a different take:

The religious counterpart to δε μασώ "I won't chew" [I don't give a damn], indicating that the subject is so determined to maintain a particular position that even if Christ himself came down to explain why he should change his mind, he would not understand and would not be persuaded.

But the absent article makes me think I'm right. There is a second meaning, "I don't understand a damn thing" (brought up in the slang.gr thread, appropriately enough, by the user called Jesus). That could be a reinterpretation of the phrase: "I refuse to understand a damn thing" > "I can't understand a damn thing" (hearers take away that it is invective and involves failure to understand, and reapply it); or it could play on the same notion of Christianity as Obvious Truth ("I'm so confused by this, I don't even understand Christianity any more"' cf. the use in English of "I've forgotten my own name.")

If someone obstinate won't even understand Christ, someone hallucinating will misunderstand Christ, again because Christianity is assumed to be self-evident, as common property of the community. Hence, the absurdist vision:

He saw G.I. Christ: Είδε τον Χριστό φαντάρο

Once again, GTAGE requires the Greek to be rendered in English without nuance. By putting φαντάρο "conscript" after the object τον Χριστό "Christ", "conscript" is a small clause, a predicate describing the result of the verb, like "he painted the house red": here "he saw Christ as a conscript".

In another culture, and another time, this would be quite right-thinking, if liberal theology: Christ humbled to the station of Everyman, and the Greek army conscript is as Everyman as the modern culture allows—a stage of humiliation and drudgery every Greek citizen is supposed to go through, if they don't have the right connections to avoid it. The theologians always knew about the humbling of the Incarnation, which is why Byzantine theologians came up with the concept of Kenosis—the emptying out, the voiding of God's will in the Son of God as He becomes Man.

But that's theologians. The common folks' understanding of Christ is what they saw in the icons: Christ as Arch-Priest, as the Almighty, as the Conqueror of Death.

For someone to see with their mind's eye Christ voided, as a lowly Everyman (and as a contemporary Everyman at that), they must be pretty far gone. Accordingly, the phrase is used to indicate that someone has been driven to extremes, that he has been pressed or worked so hard, that he is hallucinating, and seeing manifest absurdities.

More summarily, slang.gr defines the phrase as:

1. Used to stress that we are going through difficult or intense experiences.
2. To be terrified.

Orthodoxy—common folk and theologians—have a special place for the Virgin Mary, as universal mother and divine intercessor. In fact, slang.gr reports an extension of "I saw G.I. Christ": Είδα την Παναγιά περίπολο και το Χριστό φαντάρο, "I saw Holy Mary on patrol and Christ as a conscript." So if something is especially rare, it gets calledː

Holy Mary's eyes: Της Παναγιάς τα μάτια

Eyes are already used to refer to something dear, something that cannot be replaced—with accompanying derision for blindness in proverbial wisdom. So μάτια μου "my eyes" remains a term of endearment. If you're going to pile on preciousness and scarcity, the object of affection can't just be irreplacable eyes, but the irreplacable eyes of someone irreplacable: your mother. And to go even further, not just your mother, but the universal mother. But the expression refers not to something dear but to something scarce. Per slang.gr, with suitably irreverent example, and a definition which looks different but ends up meaning the same:

Absolutely everything, the lot:

Woah, she ate absolutely everything, that fart-eater. She didn't even leave Holy Mary's Eyes out!

The next reference to folk religion has been rendered overliterally once more, although the idiom is opaque enough that it's hard to realise:

He cannot crucify girlfriend: Δεν μπορεί να σταυρώσει γκόμενα|o

girlfriend/boyfriend actually (γκόμενα ~ γκόμενo), and the phrase does not refer to executing one's partner on a tree. The phrase actually means there is no partner to execute: "he can't possibly get a girlfriend/boyfriend". The expression can be used with anyone or anything impossible for someone to get hold of: δεν μπορεί να σταυρώσει φράγκο "he can't crucify a franc = he can't get (= earn) a single drachma". The nuance is that this is because of the person's inability or incompetence, not because it is impossible for a person of reasonable means to do; so you wouldn't say δεν μπορεί να σταυρώσει κότερο "he can't crucify a yacht", unless you wanted to imply that surely anyone who's anyone can surely afford a little yacht, dahlink.

The catch with this idiom is that σταυρώνω does not only mean "crucify". In traditional Greek society, which did not use Roman methods of execution, the only entity referred to as crucified was Christ, and those references were limited to Easter. The more commonly used sense of σταυρώνω is "to make the sign of the cross over" something or someone. For people, this was done as a blessing, typically to ward off evil spirits. For objects, this was done likewise, and evil spirits would be warded off a costly acquisition.

The implication here is a nice little vignette: the pauper, after much effort, finally gets a single drachma, and makes the sign of the cross over it to keep it put. The dateless is yearning to get a girlfriend; if he ever does (which he won't), he will be desperately making the sign of the cross over her, to make sure she doesn't get away from him through the offices of some evil spirit (or less nerve-wracked lover).

slang.gr does not have a distinct entry for crucifying girlfriends, but deals with the colloquial use of the verb overall:

To acquire, to happen upon, to make one's own, to fuck [in the slang sense of "to be a success"]. This admittedly pas tellment slangue term is usually expressed in the negative. Possibly from the English "he cannot crucify a girlfriend". [Yes, slang.gr in-joke referring back to GTAGE.]

The other examples given of something not gained, despite great effort and desperation, are a football victory, and a customer:

• The team cannot manage to play soccer, it cannot "crucify" a victory (δεν μπορεί να σταυρώσει νίκη), and of course it is not even dynamic enough to get bad referreeing.
  
• Doubling up the range of a brand, with two models close to each other, often shows bad strategy from the car manufacturer. A classic example is the VW Jetta; as long as the Passat is alongside it, it cannot "crucify" a customer (δε μπορεί να σταυρώσει πελάτη).

The discussants are at something at a loss of where the expression comes from. Xalikoutis suggests two possibilities. The first is crossing a customer off a list, with some relief. The second, which is along the lines I have proposed, is housewives making the sign of the cross over a painstakingly prepared dish, before putting it in the oven. Others bring up examples of passengers making the sign of the cross over the airplane crew, and a lawyer making the sign over the trial documents.

"Crucifying" a girlfriend would be a red-letter day indeed for our hapless Lothario, at any rate. After all,

It's not every day St. John's: Δεν είναι κάθε μέρα τ’ Αη-Γιαννιού

GTAGE overliteral word order of course: "Not every day is St John's", with "every day" emphasised by moving it after "is not". St John's is an important feast day in Orthodoxy as it is in Catholicism; the importance of the day for Catholics has made it the Quebec National Day (and makes for some awkwardness, now that the day is being promoted as secular, and not exclusive to the Francophones).

The Catholic feast for St John the Baptist is the commemoration of his birth, on June 24, making it the midsummer festival. The major Orthodox feast day for St John the Baptist is on January 7, making it the capstone to the Twelve Days of Christmas.

To conclude, a rendering which combines the Byzantine, the Information Age, and Modern Greek aggro, describing the kind of blasphemy that this posting has skirted.

I downloaded vigil candles: Κατέβασα καντήλια

Κατεβάζω can be used to mean "to download", and doing so is incongruous enough to make it a natural choice for GTAGE. Its more general meaning, of course, is simply "to take down". The expression means "to blaspheme", and it is modelled after κατέβασα άγιους, "I brought down saints". It would be tempting to assume in this expression some sort of rueful self-awareness, that by blaspheming in naming saints, one is bringing the saints down to their base level.

But that kind of self-awareness is fairly counterproductive, and instead I think the expression is based on the use of Χ τον ανέβασα, Ψ τον κατέβασα "I brought him up X, I brought him down Y", meaning to go through a list of descriptions for someone—the descriptions typically derogatory. (There is a variant "I brought him up X, I brought him down X", meaning that the derogatory description X is the only description fit for something.) The first few examples I've googled:

• Νερόπλυμα τον ανεβάζω, νερόπλυμα τον κατεβάζω και ποτέ δεν τον πλησιάζω (Of filter coffee) I bring it up "dishwater", I bring it down "dishwater", and I won't go near it.
  
• Το Στάθη γιατί τον ανεβάζω κωλόγρια και τον κατεβάζω πορνόγερο. Το χειρότερο είναι ότι είναι και τα δύο Why do I bring Stathis up "old hag" and bring him down "old goat"? What's worst is that he's both.
  
• ολοι σιγουρα εχετε διαβασει ποστ μου οπου βριζω τον τζεικ και σκυλο τον ανεβαζω κουταβι τον κατεβαζω
  αλλα νομιζω οτι τωρα τον εχω συμπαθησει σαν χαρακτηρα You must all have read posts by me where I swear about Jake (of Twilight), and I bring him up "dog" and bring him down "pup". But now I think I like him as a character.
  
• Ποιος έγραψε πουθενά ότι ο Παπαχελάς είναι “πράκτορας της CIA”; Εγώ πάντως όχι. Αν μη τι άλλο Μπιλντερμπέργκερ τον ανεβάζω Μπιλντερμπέργκερ τον κατεβάζω And who wrote that Papakhelas is a CIA agent? Not me. In fact, I bring him up a member of the Bilderberg Group, I bring him down a member of the Bilderberg Group.
  
• κάθετα όχι. Δεν μ'αρέσει. Ντικ τον ανεβάζω, ντικ τον κατεβάζω. Δεν ξέρω γιατί, μάλλον εμπάθεια (Response to someone welcoming Dirk Nowitzki to Olympiakos Basketball Team) Absolutely not. I don't like him. I bring him up "Dick", I bring him down "Dick". I don't know why, probably my hostility.
  
• Έτσι και πάρει την ΑΕΚ, έχει να γίνει πολλή πλάκα με τη φάτσα του. Ερμπακάν θα τον ανεβάζω, Θείο θα τον κατεβάζω (Of Haralambos Kozonis, prospective owner of AEK Football Club) If he takes over AEK, there'll be a lot of fun to have about his face. I'll bring him up "Erbakan" [because of his similarity to the Turkish politician], I'll bring him down "Uncle".
  
• Και εγώ θα τα πάρω με το Λεωνίδα, μαλάκα θα τον ανεβάζω, καριόλη θα τον κατεβάζω, θα του ρίξω τα καντήλια του I'll get in a rage with Leonidas, I'll bring him up "wanker", I'll bring him down "whore", I'll throw him down his candles. [Variant of the phrase under discussion here.]
  

The image here, *I* think, is of someone going up and down a catalogue of descriptions; by using them to describe someone, you are taking them up and down the catalogue. Once you have gone up and down a catalogue of saints, you can shorten it to just going down the catalogue—which would emphasise, if not the earthiness of the listing, certainly its definitiveness and condemnation (by the straightforward spatial metaphor, DOWN = bad, condemnation, anger).

If the saints are being brought down, it is a euphemistic and absurdist metonomy to switch from saints the cult objects associated most with saints: the candles lit in their name in church. Taking down candles is an oblique of saying you're taking down the saints that the candles are lit to honour, which in turn means to go through a derogatory cataogue of saints.

One last time, the slang.gr definition, and an explanation in comments that I don't agree with (the candles don't go down of their own accord in the expression). But it's all opinion for these derivations anyway:

Swearing, usually swearing about holy matters, blasphemy.
"Panayotis, stop pinching grandpa, because if he wakes up he's going to take down a candle on you, and he'll be entirely within his rights to."

• Meaning, our curse will be so blasphemous, that the very candles of church won't be able to stand it and will come down.

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GTAGE: We have removed him John

The Golden Treasury of Anglo-Greek Expressions (GTAGE) at slang.gr (see my pretext for this thread) begins with the enigmatic syntax of the following idiom:

we have not seen him yet, and we have removed him John: ακόμα δεν τον είδαμε, Γιάννη τον εβγάλαμε.

The actually meaning of the phrase is rather more transparent: "we have not seen him yet, [but] we have [already] named him John". It's said to refer to rushing to conclusions, assessing an outcome before all the facts are in.

But what I have translated as "named" really is literally "removed". Why is naming associated with removing?

What's actually happened of course is that the verb  βγάζω is used more generally than "remove". This can be explained through an underlying difference between Greek and English: βγάζω does not mean just to take something out of a set; it also means to put that something into a bigger set. Not just "remove from", but "expose to"; not just "take out from", but "put out to".

English doesn't make that conflation, which is why the GTAGE translation can use remove incorrectly. You can βγάζω εφημερίδα, which is to put out a newspaper (publish it), whereas βγάζω την εφημερίδα with the definite article would be taken as taking out the newspaper (remove it physically). English does allow you to take someone out (e.g. to dinner); but that's always about accompanying someone into public view. The corresponding idiom in Greek is να σε βγάλω στην κοινωνία "to put you out into society"—to make them aware of the ways of the world.

Putting something out means exposing it to the world, which means making it known to the world. And the main way of making something known is by giving it a name for the world to use. The fuller expression for "naming someone" is τού έβγαλα το όνομα Γιάννης, "I put out for him the name John". The point of naming is not that I have something to call John by; it's publishing the name, so that the rest of the world has something to call him by too. The expression has been compacted into the small-clause ditransitive you see, τον έβγαλα Γιάννη "I put him out John"—i.e. "I published him (to be) John", just like "I painted him (to be) white".

The same notion of "putting out" as public knowledge can be seen in:

He/she took them out arseholes: Τους έβγαλε μαλάκες

This is not quite "he named them arseholes" (though it can mean that too); but it is "he put them out (to be) arseholes", "he publicised them (to be) arseholes". The sense here is "proved them (in public) to be"; we dodge the "naming" sense here, because "arseholes" is not a name, it's a description, and descriptions put out in public have to be proved to be accepted.

The same principle motivates the expression μη με βγάλεις ψεύτη, "don't put me out (to be) a liar", "don't prove me a liar": namely, "don't make it a commonly accepted judgement that I am a liar". The expression corresponds to English don't let me down. The premiss is that I have publicly sung your praises as a person able to see something through; you should "not make the public think I was lying", by not living up to those expectations.

So we have names being put out, and descriptions being put out; but putting out the name of someone means something different again:

Eye-removal beats name-removal: Κάλλιο να σου βγει το μάτι παρά το όνομα

Literally, "Better that your eye be put out than your name." The expression is playing with the double meaning of βγάζω, because βγάζω το μάτι σου really does mean removing someone's eye. What does putting out the name of someone mean? It can't be giving someone a name: the definite article implies this is not a newly coined name (it's not: "than that someone makes up a name for you").

This context is more obscure, but "name" here stands in for "reputation": people with a good or bad reputation are said to have a good or bad name (καλό, κακό όνομα). Which makes sense, since the name is the public label for the person, and is what public judgement of the person is attached to. "To have a name put out" means to get a reputation, to have one's name put out in circulation for public judgement. And in closed societies, having one's name put out for public judgement is not normally a good thing.

… Did you work all that out? Or, to quote GTAGE,

Have you removed edge; Έβγαλες άκρη;

Surprisingly perhaps, we're back to "taking out", rather than "putting out". The image is of a complicated shape, standing in for the problem, which the person is trying to work out. Working out the shape means extricating its edges from the jumble: not necessarily removing them physically from the jumble, but distinguishing them—removing them conceptually. The corresponding phrase in English, though with a slightly different image, is get to the bottom of this.

Although getting to the bottom of things is a responsibility not everyone is eager to undertake, if they have to live with the consequences:

Will I extract the snake from the hole; Εγώ θα βγάλω το φίδι από την τρύπα;

For a change, the translation is straightforward. It makes it to GTAGE because it's an image unfamiliar from English, but the image is clear: getting the snake out of the hole is to the public benefit of the farmworkers, otherwise the snake could strike them at any time. But the speaker doesn't want to be the one to have to do it; and the inclusion of the personal pronoun is emphatic. ("Will I have to get the snake out of the hole?")

If you don't live up to your expectations, though,

I don't have face to exit in society: Δεν έχω πρόσωπο να βγω στην κοινωνία

This unintentionally makes sense in English, because English borrowed from Chinese the concept of "face" as public reputation. Greek does not use πρόσωπο in that way as much, but this template of putting one's face out in public as confidence does turn up elsewhere; a variant of the expression is με τι μούτρα θα βγεις την κοινωνία; "with what sort of a face will you go out into society", using the vulgar word for "face".

The verb is not βγάζω "take out, put out", but the related βγαίνω "go out", though with the same kind of ambiguity GTAGE exploits for βγάζω: going out of a place (exiting), vs. going out in public. "Face" here is used as a vehicle of shame: if a person is embarrassed, their face will be blushing, and will give the person's shame away. It will not be a face that one can get away with showing in public, "that one can go out with in society". I'm assuming the concept of blushing is behind the Chinese notion of Face as well.
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