What Does This Greek Expression Mean, "Say Hello to the Plane Tree"?

Here are two of the most famous ones:(1) During the Turkish occupation, near the Kyrristus Monument, called "Aerides", below the Acropolis in Athens, there was that Muslim Teaching School, which was founded in 1721 by Mehmet Fahri. When the Turks left Greece, the building was repaired by Hans Christian Hansen's * and, then, it served as a prison. There were imprisoned many political dissenters, among them the well-known and highly respected General Makrygiannis. In the prison courtyard there was a plane tree on which the condemned to death were hanged. Those who were lucky and were released, when leaving, said "Say 'hello to the plane tree". The prison building was demolished in 1914 and today there is nothing else but the wooden gate with its inscription.

*Hans Christian Hansen (20 April 1803 - 2 May 1883) was a Historicist Danish architect, who worked in Greece for 18 years. (Wikipaedia)(2) Another version wants the origin of this proverbial expression to be due to the greeting of two fellow villagers, when they met away from their village even abroad, and one of them was going to come back. Then the other would say: "Say 'hello' to the plane tree", a tree that was rarely missing from the central square of every village, a place of meeting of the villagers. In this case, the saying would mean that the person felt homesick and envious of those who would go back home. Either unfullfilled wish or bitterness and disappointment.Nowadays, this adverbial saying is often said by common people in Greece, who apparently know nothing about its origin. Anyway, its meaning is still here!With LoveCalomoira

Related Questions

Hello buddy, What do you say when you pick up the phone?nYou say "hello," of course.nWhat do you say when someone introduces a friend, a relative, anybody at all?nYou say "hello."nHello has to have been the standard English language greeting since English people began greeting, no?The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of "hello" goes back only to 1827. And it wasn't mainly a greeting back then. Ammon says people in the 1830's said hello to attract attention ("Hello, what do you think you're doing?"), or to express surprise ("Hello, what have we here?"). Hello didn't become "hi" until the telephone arrived.

nnThe dictionary says it was Thomas Edison who put hello into common usage. He urged the people who used his phone to say "hello" when answering. His rival, Alexander Graham Bell, thought the better word was "ahoy.

"nAhoy?n"Ahoy," it turns out, had been around longer - at least 100 years longer - than hello. It too was a greeting, albeit a nautical one, derived from the Dutch "hoi," meaning "hello." Bell felt so strongly about "ahoy" he used it for the rest of his life.

nAnd so, by the way, does the entirely fictional "Monty" Burns, evil owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant on The Simpsons. If you watch the program, you may have noticed that Mr. Burns regularly answers his phone "Ahoy-hoy," a coinage the Urban Dictionary says is properly used "to greet or get the attention of small sloop-rigged coasting ship.

" Mr. Burns, apparently, wasn't told.

nWhy did hello succeed? Aamon points to the telephone book. The first phone books included authoritative How To sections on their first pages and "hello" was frequently the officially sanctioned greeting.nIn fact, the first phone book ever published, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878 (with 50 subscribers listed) told users to begin their conversations with "a firm and cheery 'hulloa.

'" (I'm guessing the extra "a" is silent.

)nWhatever the reason, hello pushed past ahoy and never looked back. The same cannot be said of the phonebook's recommended Way To End A Phone Conversation. The phonebook recommended: "That is all."nSays Ammon Shea:nThis strikes me as an eminently more honest and forthright way to end a phone call than "good-bye.

" "Good-bye," "bye-bye," and all the other variants are ultimately contractions of the phrase "God Be with you" (or "with ye"). I don't know about you, but I don't really mean to say that when I end a conversation. I suppose I could say "ciao" - which does have a certain etymological background of coming from the Italian schiavo, which means "I am your slave," and I don't much want to say that either.

..nnThe more Ammon thought about it, the more he liked "That is all."n...For several decades the great newscaster Walter Cronkite would end his broadcasts by saying "And that's the way it is," a fine turn of phrase that has almost as much pith and truth to it as "That is all." Broadcast journalist Linda Ellerbee had a similar method of ending her news segments, with the trenchant "And so it goes.

" These are perfectly serviceable phrases, but even they don't have the clarity and utility of "That is all." I should like to see "That is all" make a comeback in colloquial speech, and I have resolved to attempt to adopt it in the few telephone conversations that I engage in.nnWell, this probably wasn't fair or even nice, but I decided to call Ammon Shea to see if he practices what he preaches. He answered his phone with a very standard "hello" and then, after I'd gotten permission to quote from his book, when it was time to end our conversation, I gave him no hint, no encouragement, I just waited to see how it would go...hoping to hear him do his "That is all." But no... He said "bye" ! Hope you liked the answer ! :) All the best :)What is the meaning and uses of "hello"?

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Why do Japanese fictional character profiles (e.g. Hello Kitty, Poku00e9mon) tend to list the blood type of the characters?

Why? Why does any ethnic group categorize its members into specific groups? Because it seems to help people know what to expect. (Kindly remember that any working definition of "stress" includes a change in status that makes it harder to know what to expect in the future.) Do English speakers really believe "Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace.

.."? Some do, for reasons that have more to do with what to expect from a child rather than objective, rational concerns. Japanese are nearly 40% type A, roughly 30% type O, slightly over 20% type B and roughly 10% type AB. These numbers are different for other ethnic groups. I understand gorillas are 100% type B, and 90% of all pigs are type O. (I am NOT suggesting anything whatsoever about any relationship between these types and humans' blood types.) And I'm also told by one of the top research doctors in Sapporo that given a blood transfusion on a large enough scale, people can change from one blood type to another. So any "proof" of Japanese beliefs in blood types influencing personalities will be purely anecdotal and surely not hold up to any rigorous statistical research.Just for fun, I refused to tell them my blood type, but I invited my adult Japanese students to explain to me (in English) which blood type they thought I was. After several hundred explanations, it worked out to about a 4-way tie among the 4 types, although the people who believed I was type AB tended to be less sure of their opinions than others. But Japanese are over 99% Rh positive, and when I revealed that I was Rh negative, nearly everyone who tried to explain their opinions immediately used that information to hedge their bets. I didn't really fit in as a person, or at least not as a Japanese person, but add the fact that I had no immunogenic D antigen in my blood, and most of my dear Japanese students were ready to change their predictions of my blood type to something different- even if they had guessed correctly!So Japanese really do use blood types as a useful bit of information about what to expect from a person. On the back of pro baseball trading cards, blood types are included right after a player's name and date of birth. There are 4-book series in Japan about what to do with your life (jobs, spouses, fashion, where to live, hair styles, etc., etc.) given that you have a given blood type. My parents-in-law were deemed a good couple before they married due to their blood types. Once they found that my then-fiancee and I were perfectly suited to be a married couple judging by our blood types, Japanese friends either cooed their approval, or else they softened their objections to our engagement.

Does one's blood type really explain anything about a person other than antigens on the surface of blood cells? If not, please be discrete with this information when you talk to Japanese. Explain to them that Wedesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go, and enjoy discussing how "true" these are compared to what blood type says about your personality. This is clearly nothing to get too stressed over.

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Why are US road cyclist typically anti social while riding? While riding I wave, nod and/or say "Hello" and rarely does the other cyclist acknowledge the gesture.

I'm American and now living in London. Firstly, I want to say that here, if we ever give the American wave, they will either look back angrily or at the very best, confused. The most contact with other riders comes in the form of "sorry" when you almost collide. But they aren't sorry. It's just a reflex in language.I'm a cyclist to the extent that I ride everyday to and from work and also take my mountain bike out in the forest. Do you live in the city? In the city, cyclists tend to veer towards owning a road bike, because they don't realise a mountain bike can double up as an off-road adventure-maker or they are never intending to do that or two, they follow whatever looks hip. It's extremely fashionable to have a road bike here. Rarely, there's a mountain bike on the road. If where you live is anywhere like where I live, then a certain style of person rides the road bike: unaware that a bike has a function other than for ornamental purposes. In the case of not waving back, it could be that everybody is:A) In a hurry to get from point A to point B, including home from work. This means they are not enjoying their ride, as much as somebody driving home would be at the end of a stressful day - then try waving at themB) Oblivious to the detriment of their surroundings. Speeding through red lights, talking on cell phones, and two cyclists cycling very slowly on busy streets so they can just chat are not uncommon. Maybe they didn't notice you at all.C) Focused on not getting killed. Being on busy roads is stressful enough, and making sure you're safe from traffic is usually at the forefront in the city. I've literally changed my route from the main roads to all back streets and through the parks to calm my nerves in the morning when not fully alert and trying to cycle in to work. My brain thanks me for its lower cortisol, so if somebody would be so brave to wave, I'd probably wave back.Or is it the dreaded D) Who are you? Do I know you? Do you have to ruin my me-time while I have a goal, here? This last one is ego. I have a high suspicion this could be what you are experiencing first-hand a good chunk of the time."