Dusty Phrases

Hi! Welcome to “Dusty Phrases.” You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.

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Greek:

καλλίστῃ
Kallístēi

English:

For the prettiest one

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This phrase derives from the myth of the Golden Apple of Discord. From wiki:

The Golden Apple of Discord is mentioned in the story of the Judgement of Paris which, according to Greek mythology, was what the goddess Eris (Ἔρις, “Strife”) tossed in the midst of the feast of the gods at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis as a prize of beauty, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite that eventually led to the Trojan War.

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In some later sources, Eris inscribed on the apple “for the fairest” or “to the most beautiful” before tossing it. The most popular version of the inscription is ΤΗΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ (Ancient Greek: τῇ καλλίστῃ, romanized: tē(i) kallistē(i), Greek: τη καλλίστη, romanized: ti kallisti; “for/to the most beautiful”).Καλλίστῃ is the dativesingular of the femininesuperlative of καλός, “beautiful”. In Latin sources, the word is formosissima.

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Because of this, the Roman goddess corresponding to the Greek Eris was named “Discordia“. Also, in German and in Dutch, the words are used a lot more often colloquially than in English, though in German the colloquial form is not Apfel der Zwietracht (lit. “Apple of Discord”) but Zankapfel (lit. “Quarrel-apple”) and rarely Erisapfel; the Dutch is twistappel (lit. “strife-apple”).

In the Eixample district of Barcelona, there is a block nicknamed in Spanish La manzana de la discordia (Catalan: Illa de la Discòrdia). The reason for this usage is that the word manzana means both “apple” and “city block” in Spanish. It was so named (“block of discord”) because it features four different interpretations of Modernisme architecture: Antoni Gaudí‘s Casa Batlló, Lluís Domènech i Montaner‘s Casa Lleó Morera, Josep Puig i Cadafalch‘s Casa Amatller, and Enric Sagnier‘s Casa Mulleras.