Life / POLES' ENGLISH COMPARED TO EUROPE AS A WHOLE? [39]



It's funny this has been your experience. Though I'm unable to speak of much personal experience with Spaniards, the Italians I have known have all spoken English exceptionally. Era, do you mean to say their English was truly poor, or rather that they spoke with accents? I find the musical cadence of the accent with which my Italian friends speak very nice, really. They are all Northern Italians though -- Turin, Milan, Genoa -- so perhaps there is a regional distinction with regard to how well they master English.

Love / Polish girlfriend and birth control! [62]


...the best word for it, I think.

Language / English words of Polish origin [19]

This is not a reliable source at all.

Love / Marriage/Relationships: PNCC vs. Roman Catholic [6]


This is the basic difference between Catholics and "high church" Protestants. Both are Christian and catholic (in the universal sense).


It depends on what you mean by this. PNCC members are not considered Roman Catholics by either themselves or the Roman Catholic Church. As such, PNCC clergy are not eligible to serve in the Roman Catholic Church. Unconfirmed Roman Catholics (including most PNCC members) can not receive communion in the Roman Catholic Church. Without a dispensation, Roman Catholics may not marry PNCC members and remain in good standing as Roman Catholics.

Law / Do you want to import quality garmants in best price? [9]

What differentiates "sweater" specifically?

Language / English words of Polish origin [19]


It isn't reliable because absolutely anybody can add whatever they want to the web page. If you go there in just a moment, you will see that I have added the word "pet" with absolutely nothing true to back it up just to demonstrate my point.

Aside from that, there aren't actually many English words there. There are just Polish foods, dances, and so on.


I'll give it a look.

Language / English words of Polish origin [19]


I could not disagree more.


I did do it. Did you know that English "pet" came from Polish "ptak?" Probably someone will if it's that obvious, and I will grant you that lists of word origins are probably not the most unreliable thing on Wikipedia. Yet, with so many reliable sources out there, why go to Wikipedia? --just because it always pops up first on a Google or Yahoo search?

Language / English words of Polish origin [19]


Adolescents edit it at will and I would contend that such edits are reverted less than half the time. It may be true of some science articles simply because the only people interested in them are those likely to edit them. As someone who studied biology as a university student, I have met more than the site's fair share of misinformation in that scientific discipline. To each his own, Polson, but I would never use Wikipedia for anything more than a very general sence of what something is or what it means.

Genealogy / MARZEC, ŚRODA, NAWROCKI WERE OFTEN CONVERT NAMES [5]

Have you tried writing him there? If he's still living there, I'll bet he'd respond.

Travel / Train Stop Closest to Gdansk Airport? [6]

Rebiechowo, right by the airport

Law / Do you want to import quality garmants in best price? [9]


Right, you mean a sweatshirt. Sweaters are knits.

Life / Moving back to Poland after 20 unhappy years in Canada and USA [70]

I like that sentiment -- very nice!

Life / HAND-KISSING WANING IN POPULARITY? [29]

The custom isn't unique to Poland, really. It's just very dated and has only much more recently lost significant popularity among Poles. It's cute in a way, I suppose, with someone one is dating or with whom one is being very formal or even silly. Much like prostrating oneself before an authority figure or informally bowing, it's very much waned in popularity. We should recall, too, that as a habit, it wasn't done hundreds of years ago either. Instead it's something that developed only a few centuries ago. It may make a comeback -- who knows? -- maybe when we're all less concerned with where her hand has been or where his lips have been earlier.

Life / Polish views towards the Brits and all other "natives" [26]


Actually, I think a scientific study was conducted that demonstrated that more people are on this show than watch it.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


Bizarre.


Or, you know, to anybody at all who finds the habit of sticking a blade and a vacuum into someone and wiping out what would have been a human being (regardless of when you feel life effectively begins -- it still would undoubtedly become a human being) because some other human beings were dumb enough to behave in such a way as to bring into being that future human being that they didn't want.


Yes, paying for the healthcare of the citizens of another country is crazy; absolutely agreed, but that's another topic.


Probably, but almost as big of an issue is that the would-be parents don't want to be bothered in the short term in addition to the long term.


To the problem of abortion, no. Is it a better solution to an unwanted pregnancy? You'd have a hard time gaining support from reasonable people that it isn't a better solution.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


Apologists for abortion always like to suggest unusual and radical circumstances. Rape isn't characteristic of most abortions. An evil, cult-loving Satanist? Hmm, well, ;-) , what if your mother knew how you'd turn out...?

USA, Canada / How to stay in USA without getting married? [125]


Yes, the easiest way to do so is to become employed by an American company and have them sponsor your permanent residency request. You may then apply for citizenship which will entail testing and an oath of loyalty. To that end, you really shouldn't apply for citizenship unless you actually want to no longer be Polish (or whatever nationality you may have) and become American.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


It doesn't concern only women, though. It concerns men, too.


I knew you were going to quote yourself. What seems to be the case, though, is actually not true. Men and women are about equally proponents of life over abortion. Would you like a long list of statistical and literary support for this?

Law / Names of construction companies in Poland required. [15]


Of course, the one-timer who wrote the lead post is from Brazil, according to his profile, not Great Britain.

Law / Names of construction companies in Poland required. [15]


Yes, commerce, it's always shrouded in mystery and general sneakiness.

Law / Names of construction companies in Poland required. [15]


Read this carefully, noimmigration: Perhaps that's true, but my eyes aren't beady.

Life / FISH SYMBOL ON POLISH CARS? [37]

It's a universal symbol for Christianity. It has no specific denominational association.

Life / FISH SYMBOL ON POLISH CARS? [37]

Sometimes it says "Darwin" in it. People who think he was an atheist or advocated atheism didn't read Darwin very well.

Life / FISH SYMBOL ON POLISH CARS? [37]

What is your basic language, noimmigration?


Or any of the other billions of people on the planet, from the very most educated to the least, from among the wealthiest to the poorest, from the most passionately faithful to the most learned scientists, and from a host of religions, Christian and otherwise, who do sincerely believe that man is a creation of God?

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


No.


Agreed, for any country, that is. It's a different topic, though.

Life / FISH SYMBOL ON POLISH CARS? [37]

A mark of sheer brilliance... and you're worried about whether a bunch of rural Americans think people and dinosaurs shared supper at some point in the distant past? You actually think whether someone believes that or not is important or relevant to anything they do in their day to day existence or how they interact with other people? "Hey boss, I know I should have called to let you know I wasn't going to show for work today, but I was just so worried about whether a distant ancestor of mine ever saw a living, breathing dinosaur, I neglected that responsibility." Try calling someone in your place of employ what you called him above and see what happens.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


It also forbids premarital intercourse, so you see how much the people involved care for religious doctrine.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]

Perhaps, but you see how contradictory it is: one breaks with religious doctrine by engaging in intercourse, but upholds doctrine by not using contraception. It's completely nonsensical. The religious doctrine on contraception is intended to be upheld when the doctrine on intercourse is also upheld. It certainly isn't the right Christian thing to do to have intercourse, not use contraception, and then commit, in accordance with religious doctrine, murder when pregnancy ensues. The Church obviously didn't discourage contraception with the intention of increasing abortions. So, I suppose the argument should be blame the idiots involved, not their religion.

UK, Ireland / 10,000 Poles in UK for free abortions [58]


No, dumbbottom... [Does that pass the snuff test?]

[By the way, who is the administrator who removes posts with the word dumbXXX (dumbbottom) from the threads?]

Genealogy / Turmoil in Small Villages Post-1905: How Extensive? [5]

In most cases, records were saved. In terms of ecclesiastical records (baptisms, which often also include the day of birth and almost always include the names and places of residence of the parents, grandparents, and godparents; marriages; and funeral rites, including day of death), if the parish book survived, it is often still with the parish or else is preserved with the diocesan records. If your ancestor was Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, or Russian Orthodox, you will want to research which parish or parishes he or she may have attended. Often, if your family is of Polish, Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Belarusan, or Lithuanian origin (and these more frequently intermarried than is widely admitted today since they all used to coexist as one nation in the old Rzeczpospolita -- Commonwealth), you may need to research several different parishes in the same few villages. If you run across landed families (either szlachta or the lesser gentry), you will have a much easier time finding records for that line.

As for the civil records (and some metrical books), look to the Polish State Archives. What has been preserved is usually kept at the main archives or the nearest branch archives. Their website is here: archiwa.gov.pl and there is an English version (click the link in the top-right of the homepage). In some cases, because of the various border changes during that era, you may actually have to conduct your research through the Ukrainian archives in Lwow (L'viv in Ukrainian).

Generally speaking, when the records have not been destroyed (again, most of them have survived), most people with Polish, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, etc., origins can trace their ancestry to at least the late 1700s, sometimes a bit earlier. If you find you are descended from a family of szlachta, which is not impossible, you may be able to trace that line to the 1500s or 1400s.