It was bound to happen, as Greece considers abandoning the euro for the drachma: the word drachmageddon, as in this New York Times article on the 23rd, “Greek Businesses Fear Possible Return to Drachma” (by Liz Alterman):
Worries that Greece might default on its debts or even leave Europe’s currency union have deepened since May 6, when Greeks voted in shocking numbers for a left-wing party willing to tear up Greece’s $170 billion international bailout agreement. These days, even though 80 percent of Greeks say they want to stay with the euro, talk of “drachmageddon” can be heard in conversations all around Athens — in executive suites, at mom-and-pop shops and even in nightclubs.
“A return to the drachma would be a nightmare,” said [Tasos] Ioannidis [owner of a luxury hotel on Mykonos], whose bookings began to trail off a few months ago and slumped badly after the election. “It would create a panic for businesses and also for people wanting to do business with Greece.”
-mageddons and -pocalypses abound these days (some discussion here), but this one is especially satisfying, because drachma and -mageddon overlap in the unaccented syllable -ma-. And a disaster word does seem to be called for in the circumstances.
(The word occurs in so many publications, at about the same time, that it seems pointless to try to discover who used it first.)
May 25, 2012 at 12:52 pm |
A couple of years back there was Acropolis Now – I wonder if we’ll see a return.
May 27, 2012 at 2:39 pm |
I find it satisfying as well, because although it’s not really a Greek root in armageddon, forming a compound with Greek words fits the “natural order” of things, somehow.
@Peter – it was also an Australian satirical TV show about Greek-Australians.
July 4, 2012 at 3:58 pm |
[…] I’ve written about several times on this blog (a summary piece here, then additions here, here, and here). Cybermageddon would have been possible, but Cybergeddon alternates accented and […]