Walk back in time to a brief moment in the early 1980s. Sit at the end of the counter on one of those round red swivel stools and watch my 20-year-old self on her first day working as a waitress at The Expressway Diner on Long Island. The predominant language is Greek, so listen carefully, keep a watchful eye and sometimes you'll understand the body language but never the actual words. . .
Within the first few hours someone had mentioned something about the cooks all basically having the same few names, which turned out to be sort of true (Gus, Nick, George, you get the idea). But with my own excellent hearing and my ability to quietly observe, I had determined that there was one small man behind the gargantuan dishwashing machine who obviously had a different name. His was Malaka.
So during the mad rush of lunchtime that first day, desperate to get his attention so he'd bring more coffee cups to the counter, I shouted , "Hey, Malaka!" and it was at that moment, with the roar of laughter from the other Greeks in the kitchen that I suspected it was not his name. My suspicion was verified milliseconds later when Andrea, the Greek-speaking waitress who was training me, said with eyes as wide as saucers and a jagged line of dismay across her brow, "Never use that word!"
This memory flooded back to me recently when I read a humorous post using the same naughty word in a Facebook Group called, The Greek Chain, It's a Facebook Group I highly recommend if you want to have fun while learning the Greek language. I enjoy it tremendously!
Here are the links for The Nifi, Your Own Kind, and Among the Zinnias. I hope you'll give one of them a try!
