Κομψός means “elegant, clean cut”. It has ancient lineage. It does not explicitly mean that someone is fashionable; it can correspond to “classic”, and it can certainly be used approvingly by an 80 year old.
Σικ, from French chic, explicitly refers to being up to date with fashion.
Both posh and preppy are negative evaluations, posh more so. The closest of the three is κυριλέ, which is derisive slang about someone with upper class affectation in how they present themselves (so posh, but without the British connotations, and more about parvenues). It is derived from κύριος, (in this context) “gentleman”, plus the French fashion style suffix -é.
The /l/ is a random consonant, inserted so the word wouldn’t end up ambiguous with κύριε “sir!”
I’m going to answer a different interpretation of this question. If all languages have access to the same, finite repertoire of segments (phonemes), then why do they sound as different as they do?
There are several answers to this.
The repertoire of phonemes may be finite, but the realisation can be phonetically different. A Dutch /x/ is much more fortis than a Greek /x/.
Different languages employ quite different subsets of the available phonemic inventory.
Languages differ in sound, not only at the level of individual segments, but also in how they arrange those segments, their phonotactics. People are very attuned to phonotactic differences, because that’s what they are listening for when they are trying to make sense of strings of segments as words.
Languages, dialects, and for that matter idiolects differ hugely in their suprasegmental phenomena, the aspects of speech that range beyond the individual segments. That includes intonation, loudness, and timbre.
The Dutch may well want to avoid Batavia these days, but Batavophile is less of a mouthful than Nederlandophile. Marginally more hits on Google too (438 vs 299).
Hollandophile has 711 hits, which just shows how insensitive the world is to the concerns of the Eastern Netherlands.
Norway is Norvegia in Latin; although the entry has not been filled in on Latin Wikipedia, a Norwegian is Norvegus. So Norvegophile.
A lot of these are going to be Modern Greek. This included.
Nikolaos Politis’ 1914 collection of Greek folk song was defining, not only for Greek folklore studies, but for the formation of Modern Greek identity. Generations learned how to be Greek from the songs published in the collection; and generations missed out on hearing the actual tunes.
In discussion with Turks here, we’ve noticed that while Turkish and Greek music are very similar, there is a sense of abandon in Turkish, and a sense of restraint in Greek song. Politis was aware of that too, and there was one song in particular he registered his disapproval of. In its excess of feeling, he said, this cannot have been Greek in origin. It must have come from the east.
Like Dionysus himself, you might say:
It is obvious that this is nothing but an image in the form of hyperbole depicting the wondrous redness of the beloved maiden’s lips. Of course, this hyperbole appears to belong rather to an Asian poet, and is alien to the restraint of Greek folk poetry.
It has indeed an excess of feeling. It is wonderful. I put it up on my website 15 years ago: Red Lip.
Κόκκιν’ αχείλι φίλησα κι έβαψε το δικό μου Και το μαντίλι το ’συρα κι έβαψε το μαντίλι. Και στο ποτάμι το ’πλυνα κι έβαψε το ποτάμι. Κι έβαψε η άκρη του γιαλού κι η μέση του πελάγου. Κατέβη ο αϊτός να πιεί νερό κι έβαψαν τα φτερά του. Κι έβαψε ο ήλιος ο μισός και το φεγγάρι ακέριο.
I kissed my love’s red lip; her lip, it reddened mine. I wiped mine with a cloth; the cloth, it went all red. I washed it in the stream; the stream, it went all red. Red now the seashore’s edge, red the midst of the main. The eagle came to drink; its wings, they went all red; red now is half the sun, red now the moon entire.
Googling the lyric, I found that it was set to music in 1989. (Remember, Politis didn’t bother recording the tunes.)
It’s a red letter day when the first comment you see on a YouTube page is not only not stupid, it’s in fact from the singer-songwriter:
A friend pointed the traditional verses out to me. In two days I composed the tune and the parts, then I sang it in the recording. I was 25 years old. Thank you for uploading it. Nikos Grapsas.
Not accepting food and drink from a household you’re visiting.
Insisting on paying your own share of the meal (if not taboo, certainly frowned upon: you have to at least pretend to offer to pay for everybody).
Failing to use formulaic expressions (“Happy month!” “Happy business!” “May she live long for you!” “With health!” “Life to you!” “Take this guy to your wedding, and he’ll wish you many happy returns!”)
Waiting your turn in a queue isn’t a taboo, but it does mark you out as maladjusted to the social realities there. Even if there is a proverb encouraging it. (“Even if you’re a priest, you’ll go to your line”)
No taboo about blasphemy: cursing in Greece really is still cursing.
Ethnographically, I think there is still a taboo about dropping bread to the ground. It was enforced by the legend of how Hagia Sophia was inspired by Justinian dropping a crumb of communion bread to the floor, a bee flying off with it, and fashioning a mini Hagia Sophia of wax with the crumb at the altar.
Praising people too vocally, especially if they are babies. Ritual spitting ensues to ward off the evil eye. That is probably on the way out.
Saying nice things about Turks. That’s probably starting to be on the way out too.
Saying nice things about Angela Merkel or Wolfgang Schäuble. That one’s definitely on the way in.
There’s a reason Konstantinos Konstantinides never heard of this practice: it had dropped out of use in Modern Greek early in the 20th century. As in fact had the initial rough breathing on rho.
The ῤῥ orthography used to be regular in Western typography, but has long since fallen out of use; from memory, it was routine in early 19th century editions of Classical texts, and rare by late 19th century editions.
The ῤῥ orthography reflects a phonological reality of Classical Greek, that the second rho in a pair was voiceless, something attested in Herodian. Allen’s Vox Graeca (p. 39), who mentions the evidence, also refers to writing ῤῥ as a Byzantine practice, and it is of course corroborated in the Latin transliteration <rrh> (e.g. Pyrrhus = Πύῤῥος).
Any dictionary of Greek before 1970 is going to be biased towards Katharevousa, and that includes any Greek dictionary you find online (legally). That includes, for example, the 1868 Contopoulos English–Greek dictionary, Νέον λεξικόν ελληνόαγγλικόν. It includes the 15 volume Dimitrakos monsterpiece (not linked, since bootlegged). It also includes any number of Greek–Greek or Greek–French dictionaries, such as Dehèque, Hépitès, Koumanoudes, and Skarlatos Byzantios. You’ll find all of these on Google Books or archive.org
Why aren’t my follows and followers shared if they also participate in other language versions of Quora?
I can only say that in my limited experience they are—certainly on the German Quora. I did not need to explicitly follow Clarissa Lohr or Joachim Pense, they came with the territory. As has Judith Meyer, who I have not interacted with in a long time.
I wish I was happier with the answer. Went through Smyth and Kühner–Blass.
If the -της suffix is applied to a noun, and indicates someone associated with the noun, e.g. ναύ-ς ‘ship’ > ναύ-της ‘sailor’, the stress is penult.
If the -της suffix is applied to a verb, and indicates the agent of a verb, the stress is usually on the ultima, e.g. μανθάνω ‘learn’ > μαθητής ‘ student’; but occasionally penult: τίθημι ‘place’ > νομοθέτης ‘lawgiver’.
Kühner-Blass §107.4.e does attempt some rules on the distribution of stress in that context. Are you ready?
Exceptions: κρι-τής, ὑπο-κρι-τής, but ὀνειρο-κρί-της; εὑρε-τής. Attic stressed on the ultima some forms derived from liquid verbs (verb roots ending in l,n,r): καθαρτής, ἀμυντής, εὐθυντής, πραϋντής, ψαλτής, φαιδρυντής, καλλυντής, ποικιλτής.
Note that some of these exceptions were undone in later Greek: εὑρέ-της, ψάλτης.
Ultima: verb roots with a long last vowel, or with an /s/ before the ending, particulary common in verbs ending in -ζω: ποιη-τής, μαθη-τής, θεᾱ-τής, μηνῡ-τής, ζηλω-τής, δικασ-τής, ὀρχησ-τής, κτισ-τής.
And a few more exceptions got added later too: κτίσ-της.
So there was originally a phonological condition on whether the agentive suffix was accented or not; and as so often happens in the history of Greek, that rule was blown away to kingdom come, even within Classical Greek.
OP gave the example of ουρανοξύστης, ‘skyscraper’. The word for ‘scraper’ is derived from the verb ξέω, aorist ἔ-ξυσ-α. In Attic, it used the older agentive ending, ξυσ-τήρ. ξύστης violates the rule in Kühner, where a sigma means ultima stress; but by the time the form ξύστης was used, the phonological conditioning was long out the window. The form first shows up, as ξύστης, in the third century AD (LSJ Supplement), though in the 17th century vernacular Somavera dictionary, it is accented “correctly” as ξυστής. It shows up as ξύστης in Trapp’s Lexicon of (Late) Byzantine Greek, as do the compounds ὀδοντοξύστης ‘toothpick’ and μαρμαροξύστης ‘marbleworker’.
I think the answer to your question, OP, is there is a usual pattern to the accents, but it all too often ends up random.
I need a break. I love my amazing friends here, but I definitely need to concentrate on career building, finishing my novel, moving, my new board position, networking and mental health. And of course, leave the house and see friends. I hope to be back in August. Contact me via email if you need me. I will miss you all, and I wish you only joy and happiness and success.