ντελιβεράς – deliveras – a delivery person
A couple of weeks ago, a friend visited us quite late, so we ordered pizza. When the order arrived, the delivery ‘boy’ turned out to be a man in his fifties. More on this below.
The Greek purists will be up in arms over yet another borrowing from English – especially as there is a perfectly good Greek word: διανομέας – dhianomeas. Both ντελιβεράς and διανομέας are in the newspapers right now following the death of a delivery man in Thessaloniki. The poor man was killed when his motorbike was hit by a 21-year-old who had run a red light and who did not have a driving licence. (We are also constantly reminded that the driver is an αλλοδαπός – allodhapos – a foreigner, a more formal word than the more common ξένος – xenos.)
Aside from the trauma inflicted on the widow and children, another thing struck me. The poor man was 47. The guy who delivered our pizzas was even older. What are men of that age doing delivering food? Here in the West Midlands, delivery ‘boys’ are just that; mostly young men from about 16 to 25. I seem to remember this was the case in Greece ten to fifteen years ago – young students trying to earn pocket money. I think these poor guys lost their jobs during Greece’s economic crisis and have been reduced to delivering pizzas. I felt very awkward about tipping our pizza man. It must be difficult to convince such middle-aged men all work is ennobling.
Returning to ντελιβεράς, its plural is ντελιβεράδες. A woman is a ντελιβερού (plural ντελιβερούδες). And as well as διανομέας, another synonym is ταχυμεταφορέας – tachimetaforeas. Unsurprisingly, that 7-syllable mouthful has never caught on. It has just occurred to me that I do not know which institution is responsible for dreaming up such unusable words like ταχυμεταφορέας and (my favourite) καλαθοσφαίριση, a word nobody uses for basketball. An additional problem is the declension of nouns ending in -έας is not very easy, even for many Greeks. My next task is to find the Greek equivalent of the Académie Française. Somehow and somewhere, the lexicographer Babiniotis will be involved. In harking back to the ancient language to create new words, some common sense is required. Sesquipedalianism is not going to work in everyday speech. If proof were needed, Word does not recognise the first word of the previous sentence.