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• George Poulos
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Cutting off his/her air supply

I think one of the most visually dynamic expressions I heard, growing up in a Kytherian household was - "to cut off a persons air supply".

"Na kopsis tin aera tou."

This meant/means literally to cut off a persons air supply. To put a person down. To reduce them to impotence. In the modern English idiom we might say to "be jarred."

To deprive a person of "psychological oxygen" - is a far more powerful symbol - than any analogous expressions in English.

"Na kopsis tin aera tou."

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2 Comments

James Gavriles
on 23.01.2006

Another variation of this is whne they want someone to shutup or quit talking they will say; "Skaseh Moreh"

Vikki Vrettos Fraioli
on 10.02.2007

I remember a slightly different variation...."I'll cut your ears off!" When I was a teenager growing up in Oakland, California, my father was very strict about who I went out with or who I talked with on the telephone. When the phone rang at our house, he would pick it up. If it was a boy, he would ask for the last name and if it wasn’t a Greek name he would say, “Don’t call again or I’ll cut your ears off”!

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