The 'unambiguous-lie-detector' Syndrome

There's a Russian proverb that goes something like this: "The Greeks only tell the truth once a year." There are quite a few Russian immigrants who live here, so I'm guessing they've had enough contact on a daily basis with Greek people to get a well-rounded opinion of them. And perhaps, after many years, they've developed this expression to show how rare it is for Greeks to tell the truth. Now I don't know about you but I've had my share of Greeks blatantly lying to me to know that there's no telling when and by whom a lie will come to its fruition. But one thing is for sure, when you've had enough dealings with Greeks you come to know approximately when they're going utter one. It's a fail-safe mechanism that they've come to adopt from the outside world. Since they can't seem to accept any form failure, they need a quick way to compensate for the chance that there might exist some probability of it occuring. You have to come to accept their speech pattern since it's part of their everyday routine. And in order for you to conform to it, you also have to maybe change what you were accustomed to as far as what you considered to be proper etiquette. If you've seen the movie 'liar-liar' with Jim Carrey you know then that in order for him to survive and succeed in his job he had to lie no matter what. The same holds true here but only to greater extent in that it encompasses every aspect of living. Don't get me wrong, there are those who are morally and ethically in tune with what the rest of the world considers proper; it's just a little harder finding them here - that's all.