That's Greek to me or It's (all) Greek to me is an idiom/dead metaphor in English, expressing that something is not understandable. The idiom is typically used with respect to the foreign nature, complexity or imprecision of verbal or written expression or diagram, often containing excessive use of jargon, dialect, mathematics, science, symbols, or diagrams. The metaphor makes reference to Greek (either ancient or modern), as an archetypal foreign form of communication both written and spoken. Origins It may have been a direct translation of a similar phrase in ("it is Greek, [therefore]...

Tutnese or Double Dutch is a language game primarily used in English, although the rules can be easily modified to apply to almost any language. Tutnese is usually used by children, who use it to converse in (perceived) privacy from adults (or vice versa); by members of historically marginalized minority groups for the same reason when in the presence of authority figures such as police ("pupolulisus" or "pizolizice"); or simply for amusement and humor. Language rules In it, vowels are pronounced normally, but each consonant is replaced with a syllable from the following table: {| clas...

:For the genus of jumping spiders, see Orthrus. In Greek mythology, Orthrus (Orthros) or Orthus (Orthos) () was a two-headed dog and a doublet ("brother") of Cerberus, both whelped by the chthonic monsters Echidna and Typhon. He was owned by the three-bodied giant, Geryon. Orthrus and his master, Eurytion, were charged with guarding Geryon's herd of red cattle in the "sunset" land of Erytheia ("red one"), one of the islands of the Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. Heracles eventually slew Orthrus, Eurytion, and Geryon, before taking the red cattle to complete his tenth l...

Orcus is the fictional demon prince, and lord of the undead in many campaign settings for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. He is named after Orcus of Roman mythology. His symbol is a mace with a human skull as the head. Orcus is one of the most detailed demon lords of the Dungeons & Dragons game and one of a small handful to be detailed in every edition of the game. Orcus was also named as one of the greatest villains in D&D history by the final print issue of Dragon. Publication history Dungeons & Dragons (1974-1976) Orcus was first presented in the Eldritch Wizardry s...

In the early modern period, the voyages of Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of great significance in world history. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for Castile, a country that later founded modern Spain. He made four voyages to the Americas, with his first in 1492, which resulted in what is considered by European Americans as the Discovery of America or Discovery of the Americas. The discovery of the Americas has variously been attributed to others, depending on context and definition. For example, Asia...

D. Vasco da Gama () (c. 1460 or 1469 – 23 December 1524), 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India. He is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Discovery Ages, being the first European to reach India by sea. This discovery was very significant and paved the way for the Portuguese to establish a long lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese would not need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor th...

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in American English, used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs. It has been discussed in literature since 1972 when the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo. It was posted to Linguist List by Rapaport in 1992. It was also featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct as an example of a sentence that is "seemingly nonsensical" but grammatical. Pinker nam...

"James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher" is an English sentence used to demonstrate lexical ambiguity and the necessity of punctuation, which serves as a substitute for the intonation, stress, and pauses found in human speech. In human information processing research, the sentence has been used to show how readers depend on punctuation to give sentences meaning, especially in the context of scanning across lines of text. The sentence is sometimes presented as a puzzle, where the solver must add the punctuation. The example refers to two ...