Green horses
More Greek etymological madness!
There is a saying in modern Greek, πράσινα άλογα (prásina álogha), which literally means “green horses”. It is usually added to the end of a sentence to show that something is crazy, unbelievable, foolish and to express disbelief for a statement.
i.e «Είπε ότι θα είναι πάντα στην ώρα του από δω και στο εξής και πράσινα άλογα»
(“He said he will always be on time from now on and green horses”)
The sentence indicates that the person has not stopped being late or that there is disbelief expressed that this person has the ability to even start trying being on time.
Why green horses though? How did this come to be?
Interestingly, no, it was not formed as a concept due to the inherent improbability of a horse being green. It originally had nothing to do with horses, let alone green ones.
The phrase originates from the ancient «πράσσειν άλογα» (prásin álogha) which means “acting thoughtlessly”.
The sound similarity between πράσσειν (prásin, acting) and πράσινα (prásina, green) is entirely incidental. The άλογα (álogha, thoughtlessly / horses) is on the contrary the same word! You see, the “official” Greek word for horse is ίππος (hippos or ippos). However, all animals were often called in ancient and especially medieval times as άλογα, from the negative α- and the noun λόγος which means logic, reason. Therefore animals were called álogha, beings without logic. The more the language evolved the word started describing horses more specific until in modern Greek it became the standard word for horse, overcoming ίππος by a long shot.
The phrase was surviving throughout in some way or another, however now the meaning of άλογα was getting enriched (it still also means “thoughtlessly”). Simultaneously, the infinitive «πράσσειν» was slowly fading, especially because its other lexical variant «πράττειν» (prátin, also means acting) was more popular and its verb is still used in its -t- variant nowadays.
So as πράσσειν was gradually becoming rarer and άλογα was getting a double meaning, people either out of humour or out of poor vocabulary morphed the phrase into πράσινα άλογα, green horses!
Interestingly it still expresses judgement against someone’s perceived stupidity, unreliability or madness (acting thoughtlessly)!
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Anyone just sometimes think about how tragic it is that in Greek mythology the goddess of marriage is married to someone blatantly unfaithful to her and the goddess of love was forced to marry someone she didn’t love?
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i love when academics are like this
from the translator's introduction in my copy of antigone... she's his blorbo.... <3
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~ Coin, Tetradrachm: A. Head of Athena, three olive leaves on the helmet; B. AΘE
Country/Issuer: Ancient Greece, Attica Athenes
Date: 5th century B.C.
Medium: Silver
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