Have discovered new possible career, or at least minor source of pocket money. Many Cypriot signs, advertisements, menu items, etc are translated into English, sometimes helpfully, sometimes puzzlingly, often amusingly. So bilingual take away menu from Zafiris Restaurant down the road (featuring such delicacies as 1/2 lamb's head for a modest €6 - £5.13, $8.38 CAD) lists ΠΑΓΙΔΑΚΙΑ XOIPINA . XOIPINA, I know, is pork, and indeed the menu translates the phrase as "pork cattle". Cattle? So what is ΠΑΓΙΔΑΚΙΑ? First task is transliteration, giving PAGIDAKIA, but dictionaries not too helpful. Googling suggests cutlets. Yes, plausible. Most likely Cypriot term, as the Greek/English dictionaries claim no knowledge of it.
Some letters simply have no direct equivalent, so, for example, the Greek gamma is replaced somewhat randomly with G or K. Hence Carrefour's unhappily labelled hot gross buns. I put this down to the brother-in-law factor - supposing that spelling and translation errors are mostly down to the task being assigned to a friend or relative who purports to be fluent in English, and imagine advertisements for my new career, along the lines of "your brother-in-law is a great drinking mate, not a great translator. Don't let people laugh when you advertise your goods: professional proofreader will translate into perfect English." Of course I can't translate more than a few words of Greek, but usually the business knows roughly what should be said, the problem is that the "brother-in-law" doesn't get it right enough.
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