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:
O filthy head of ill-starred hair, how savage you have become by being so long unwashed!

ὦ βοστρύχων πινῶδες ἄθλίων κάρα,
ὡς ἠγρίωσαι διὰ μακρᾶς ἀλουσίας.
Line 387:
Poor man, how wild you look with your filthy hair!

ὡς ἠγρίωσαι πλόκαμον αὐχμηρόν, τάλας.
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.



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