ημερίδα – a seminar
In all the years I have been involved with Greece and Greek, this word escaped me until a week or two ago. It is not a word I have known previously but forgotten. I’d managed to get through life without ever seeing it or consciously hearing it. I’m sure the following happens to many language learners: you come across a word you have never heard before and, within a few minutes – and in a different context – you see it again. Babiniotis contrasts ημερίδα with συνέδριο (conference) and συμπόσιο (symposium), ημερίδα and συμπόσιο being less formal and of shorter duration than a συνέδριο. Etymologically, a symposium is a drinking session, so next time you stagger home from the Boar’s Head, you can always tell the wife you were attending a symposium on hop varieties.