ὑπερβολή

Do you find that, even after another long meeting with Accounts, the Athens debt talks are still all Greek to you? This is a sure sign that you simply aren’t up to speed with Greek hyperbole.

ὑπερβολή (or huperbole) is – as you’d imagine – a Greek word, and comes from huper (over) + bole (egged/thrown). As the Greek negotiating team have been putting it to good use with both the Troika and the bondholders in recent weeks, The Slog thought it would be useful to provide a translation of what Greeks say about stuff from hyperbole into English. These are the key words for financial bloggers and  journalists everywhere to remember:

Close to – a million light years away, and also we lost the map already

Days – months

One step away – we have a f**king mountain to climb here

Reform – shuffle the cards a little, then deal off the bottom

Sell – put ads for the Olympic Village in the Uzbekhistan Gazette

Assets – donkeys

Negotiation – attempt to find out how dumb the other side could be

Talks – breaking off negotiations

Breaking off negotiations – playing for time

Committed to progress – desperate for survival

Progressing slowly – reversing rapidly

Open market – closed shop

Sometimes, an example helps to put such ὑπερβολή into context. For example, Angelo Venizelos told the Greek media today:

“The Greek government is one step from closing a debt-swap deal with its private bondholders“

which we can translate as:

“I have just announced my candidacy for the leadership of Pasok“

The latest alleged development is that the Hedgies have backed off a bit, and the Greeks have chucked in a sweetener to do with bond bonuses if the Greek economy recovers during the term. Hahahahahahahahahaha. Sorry about that, but two chances, snowball in Hell etc etc come to mind.

It is fairly clear, I understand, that every detail of the talks is now going direct to the ECB for approval. As I hear the new bond coupon is now back at around 3.5 -3.6% with the ‘economic growth’ sweetener, there is at last a real chance that this deal will be done. If it goes sideways from here, then we can be sure that there are still problems in the Franco-German banking system – i.e, the Fuhrerine and her poodle aren’t ready yet.