What kind of παπατζης?

107 views
Skip to first unread message

Gomesio

unread,
Jul 4, 2013, 11:58:34 AM7/4/13
to rebe...@googlegroups.com
Hi everybody,
in this song (called παπατζης) what is Stellakis talking about? I supposed he was referring to a priest, but on slang.gr (here http://www.slang.gr/lemma/show/papas_11460 ) I foun another acceptation of papatzis, that is a cannabis raw bough (something like the bad cured beard of an old priest....). Since I can't understand the lyrics, maybe some of you could enlighten me about that!
Thank you for reading this,
Tristano

Eleni Vamvakari

unread,
Jul 4, 2013, 1:25:26 PM7/4/13
to rebe...@googlegroups.com
I could understand your confusion. Priest is papas παπάς. The plural
is papades παπάδες. But from what I've heard, a papadzis παπατζής
(plural papatzides παπατζήδες) is a con man, like you'd find in
carnivals etc. He would often run games like three-card monty,
wherein he would ask the player to guess where the card would be after
he shuffled. Only he would cheat, so that the player hardly ever got
it right. Often, he'd do this on the streets, not during any type of
festival, and would be chased away by the police. Hope that helps,
and if I'm in error, guys, feel free to chime in.

All the best,
Eleni

On 04/07/2013, Gomesio <tire...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> in this <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwOUwVqkcWw> song (called
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Rebetika" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to rebetika+u...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to rebe...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rebetika.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>
>

Νίκος Πολίτης

unread,
Jul 5, 2013, 7:30:02 AM7/5/13
to rebe...@googlegroups.com

You got it right, Eleni! Only point you missed is the reason why the man is called so: Well, the three items usually are three cards from a card pack, the winner being a king*. The slang name for the king card is Papas, so the man usually shouted out"  Edo papas, ekei papas, pou ine o papas?  Exactly so is the name of the game, too, Papas:  "Ston Papa ta konomousa", it was with Papas that I was making good money!


* the king figure of course is neither one of the three, if the man is good enough on the game.

AKRITAS

unread,
Jul 5, 2013, 8:51:48 AM7/5/13
to rebe...@googlegroups.com
I saw this game last year in Budapest... these con men are so good! I think he was a Gypsy. He was letting people win every once in a while with one euro bets, etc.. then got a whole crowd of Asian tourists excited (men of course, the women stayed sensibly off to the side) let them win a 5 or even a 10 euro bet until they started throwing down 50 euro notes... Of course, they didn't win a single one of those...They were banging their heads!  Just like luring in a fish, playing with the line, let it out, pull it gently in until bam, you grab him with the hook!


From: Νίκος Πολίτης <nikap...@gmail.com>
To: rebe...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 5, 2013 7:30 AM
Subject: Re: What kind of παπατζης?

You got it right, Eleni! Only point you missed is the reason why the man is called so: Well, the three items usually are three cards from a card pack, the winner being a king*. The slang name for the king card is Papas, so the man usually shouted out"  Edo papas, ekei papas, pou ine o papas?  Exactly so is the name of the game, too, Papas:  "Ston Papa ta konomousa", it was with Papas that I was making good money!

* the king figure of course is neither one of the three, if the man is good enough on the game.

Τη Πέμπτη, 4 Ιουλίου 2013 8:25:26 μ.μ. UTC+3, ο χρήστης Eleni Vamvakari έγραψε:
I could understand your confusion.  Priest is papas παπάς.  The plural
is papades παπάδες.  But from what I've heard, a papadzis παπατζής
(plural papatzides παπατζήδες) is a con man, like you'd find in
carnivals etc.  He would often run games like three-card monty,
wherein he would ask the player to guess where the card would be after
he shuffled.  Only he would cheat, so that the player hardly ever got
it right.  Often, he'd do this on the streets, not during any type of
festival, and would be chased away by the police.  Hope that helps,
and if I'm in error, guys, feel free to chime in.

All the best,
Eleni

On 04/07/2013, Gomesio <tire...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> παπατζης) what is Stellakis talking about? I supposed he was referring to a
>
> priest, but on slang.gr (here http://www.slang.gr/lemma/show/papas_11460 )
> I foun another acceptation of papatzis, that is a cannabis raw bough
> (something like the bad cured beard of an old priest....). Since I can't
> understand the lyrics, maybe some of you could enlighten me about that!
> Thank you for reading this,
> Tristano
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Rebetika" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to rebetika+u...@ googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to rebe...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rebetika.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/ groups/opt_out.
>
>
>

Gomesio

unread,
Jul 5, 2013, 9:08:03 AM7/5/13
to rebe...@googlegroups.com
Thank all of you for answering me! So the song is talking about a con man, isn't it? And what about the cannabis bough? Does it have nothing to do with παπατζης?
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages