Friday, September 14, 2007
Bad Hair Day
According to the Word Detective, the phrase bad hair day first appeared in print in 1988, in a column by Susan Swartz in the Houston Chronicle. Of course the phenomenon antedates the phrase, and I just noted a couple of examples in Euripides' Orestes (tr. David Kovacs).
Lines 225-226:
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Lines 225-226:
O filthy head of ill-starred hair, how savage you have become by being so long unwashed!Line 387:
ὦ βοστρύχων πινῶδες ἄθλίων κάρα,
ὡς ἠγρίωσαι διὰ μακρᾶς ἀλουσίας.
Poor man, how wild you look with your filthy hair!Euripides was famous or infamous for his realism (e.g. the notorious rags of Telephus), and I imagine that the actor playing Orestes wore an unkempt wig.
ὡς ἠγρίωσαι πλόκαμον αὐχμηρόν, τάλας.
