Απορροφητικό Υγρασίας

[cosmasad]

This is going to be a funny question: «Απορροφητικό Υγρασίας» is a device that removes humidity in a room by drawing it through salt in the device. What would be a good “colloquial” way to referring to it if speaking to a cleaning person particularly in the plural?



Thank you!

 

[SBE]

Αφυγραντήρας λέγεται η συσκευή που στα αγγλκά τη λέμε dehumidifier.
Πληθυντικός αφυγραντήρες.
What makes you think that a Greek cleaner would need a "colloquial" word?

 

[cougr]

This is going to be a funny question: «Απορροφητικό Υγρασίας» is a device that removes humidity in a room by drawing it through salt in the device. What would be a good “colloquial” way to referring to it if speaking to a cleaning person particularly in the plural?



Thank you!

If you're talking about the simple moisture absorbers which use silica or other type of dessicant, they're typically referred to as "απορροφητές υγρασίας". "Αφυγραντήρες", which SBE mentions, usually refer to the more sophisticated refrigerant or dessicant types of dehumidifier.

 

[cosmasad]

I appreciate your patience. The one I'm referring to is not electric. It's a very simple device that has a cube of salt in it that collects the moisture in to a small bucket. To answer SBE's question about why I am looking for a more colloquial word, I guess I was just making sure that there wasn't one that people tend to use more often than the more technical sounding "Απορροφητικό Υγρασίας." So if Απορροφητικό Υγρασίας is the phrase to use would the plural be "Απορροφητικά Υγρασίας"?

Thank you!

 

[cougr]

They're more commonly referred to as "απορροφητές υγρασίας" (or συλλέκτες υγρασίας). "Απορροφητικά υγρασίας" is often used to denote the small packets of silica crystals or other absorbent substances in general, hence might be confusing.

 

[pontios]

The simple dehumidifiers (that are not plugged in) might also be called "παθητικοί αφυγραντήρες (as in passive dehumidifiers)?"

Edit:
(That's what I thought, anyway, but I could only find one reference of the Greek term - whereas you'll find plenty of "passive dehumidifiers")?

 

[SBE]

You have to remember that in Greece we use as everyday words what the average English speaker considers rather formal. Anything from plant names to body parts. So for example you go for an εξέταση ούρων and not for a wee wee test, which is what one of my first GPs told me, to my surprise.

 

[Duke_of_Waltham]

See, that confounds me: I'd have expected "urine test" to be a perfectly reasonable way to put it, while "wee wee test" sounds infantilising. Latin- and Greek-derived words often do retain in English that aura of learning, though, given their mostly technical and literary use – I'm not referring here to old loans that have changed almost beyond recognition – so perhaps the doctor was just attempting to be friendly.

It goes the other way, too: I understand there are all sorts of everyday Turkish words which in Greek are associated with colloquial, regional or archaic expressions, and have often been considered the mark of an uneducated speaker in a country where the educational system tried for a long time to purify the national language and extirpate this kind of "foreign admixtures". Seeing haber ("news") on a Turkish television channel, for example, may seem amusing to a Greek, who is used to the lower register of phrases like "τι χαμπάρια;" και "δεν χαμπαριάζει καθόλου", as opposed to the more formal ειδήσεις.

 

[SBE]

I think for a non native speaker it is always best to err on the formal side, which will be understood by everyone than to try (unsuccessfully) to sound colloquial.
And as my pronunciation teacher put it (about the UK): using the "wrong" vocabulary or the "wrong" pronunciation as a foreigner indicates to your interlocutor who you hang out with. Then I came across a Greek in London who was a lodger of an elderly couple and she had picked up their way of speaking and she sounded completely out of place at work. Similarly, if a non-native speaker were to walk into an office in Greece and say γεια χαραντάν μόρτηδες, τί χαμπάρια σήμερις; I think people would assume someone deliberately misled him as a joke.