Who deers to steal the kings drachmare?

September 25, 2014 1:41 PM

This is the story of Greece's Robin Hood.
posted by michaelh (10 comments total)

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home."

- Woodie Guthrie

Flippancy aside.. sometimes it seems as though, failing to remember the Great Depression, we may be doomed to repeat it.
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:32 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

That's a hell of a story -- thanks for posting it!
posted by languagehat at 3:04 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Some of the writting and color details read a little iffy - 100,000 drachmas was not a huge amount of money at any time in the nineties - but the story itsself is amazing. The second helicopter escape was a real facepalm moment for Greek police.
posted by Dr Dracator at 10:45 PM on September 25, 2014

Stay free and awesome, dude.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:14 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love how this is a story where driving a stolen tank through prison walls doesn't even warrant whole sentence to itself. In most other stories, that would be a major set piece.
posted by Kattullus at 4:24 AM on September 26, 2014

Some googling suggests it wasn't really a tank, but a truck with improvised armor plating, and they didn't get to try it anyway. Also came accross this one:

What begins with a P, ends with an S and goes in and out all the time?

Paleokostas
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:00 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does that joke work in Greek?
posted by Naberius at 8:02 AM on September 26, 2014

Yes, oddly enough; the Greek word for 'penis' is πέος [peos]. Fun historical-linguistic fact: Latin penis is from *pes-nis and Greek peos is from *pes-os (intervocalic -s- disappears in Greek), and both—like Sanskrit pasas (short e and o become a in Sanskrit)—are from Proto-Indo-European *pes- (which presumably meant 'penis').
posted by languagehat at 11:34 AM on September 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

The more vulgar πούτσος is probably implied, which I think can be traced back to a slavic loan word but don't quote me.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:56 AM on September 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I was thinking it was probably the vulgar word, but I couldn't remember what it was, and hey, the official one fit...
posted by languagehat at 1:47 PM on September 26, 2014