PARANOJA -- MISUSED IN POLISH?

For some reason, in Poland the term "paranoja" has come to be a kind of exclamation displaying one's negative atttiude towards disorder, chaos, confusion, something undesirable or improper. Don't Poles realise this term refers to a psychlogcial aberration and means an irrational, usually groundless and obsessive fear or anxiety? Anyone know how this misinterpretation came about?

The same with the misuse of the word profesor in Polish. Everyone, even ur secondary school teacher is Pan/Pani profesor. In most countries this is an honourary title awarded by Universities, but not in Poland

I think it's common in many languages that you call someone paranoid even if all the diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV are not present.

Paranoia is a symptom rather than an illness.

But in colloquial Polish paranoja is usually used to negatively assess a bad situation, not a person.

The term is used in both senses: 1) strictly medical and 2) colloquial with the meaning as you said.

1) Ten człowiek cierpi na paranoję. To paranoik.
2) Lech Kaczyński został prezydentem, a jego brat-bliźniak premierem. Paranoja!

It may sound as a misuse but it's simply a tradition with historic reasons.

Now, it always makes me wonder how come 7 year old children in a primary school in Wales are called students. They don't study anything, they learn how to spell and how to add simple numbers. Some will proceed and they will in fact study. Most will not only remain on the basic spelling level, while others will regress.

Haha...you cant help it can you? Someone comments about Poland and you have to justify the Polish issue and then say "BUT BUT BUT IN Wales...or in England or in the USA"

Of course they are students if they are studying how to spell and do math. How ridiculous of you.

That's not good example of paranoia at all.

And about that professor thing: I'm surprised that you live in Poland for couple of years now and you still didn't figure out that same words in different languages have different meanings.

After Wikipedia: "The meaning of the word professor (Latin: professor, person who professes to be an expert in some art or science, teacher of highest rank) varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual. For example, in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, United States, Canada, and Hong Kong it is a legal title conferred by a university denoting the highest academic rank. However, in some institutions, the term is used only for academics who are tenured or tenure-track. In some countries, e.g. Austria, Brazil, France, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Spain and Italy, the term is an honorific applied also to secondary level teachers."

No, I can't help being Polish speaking the language and understanding how it works. Hence I point out how silly it is to address an issue where there is none, while there are issues in the poster's native language.

In Polish, the word profesor is not a misuse when refering to a person teaching in a secondary school.


Don't get me started on the US where they misuse all the 11 words most people are limited to ;)

Indeed, if he said "another example of this kind is that in Wales 7 year-old children are called students ...", it probably won't provoke such a reaction on your part. It is true that Polish people are often over-sensitive to what has been said about Poland (a very interesting article on that in yesterday's "Rzeczpospolita" *) while there is really no need for this. I remember Mrs. Tchatcher being constantly insulted in the press and TV in the 1980s, but my British friends explained that she would have never been leaving courts of justice if she wanted to do something about it. In contrast to that, president Lech Kaczyński wished to take a low-ranking German newspaper to court just for having called him a "potato"; the paper then apologised to the potato for comparing it to president Kaczyński. Everyone had a good laugh just because Lech Kaczyński over-reacted to the comment which is of usual type in the free (satirical) press. The reason for the Polish sensivity may come from the fact that we in Poland have been living for a long time in a dependent and totalitarian state where we felt "conquered" yet very proud people, so those who criticize us are unfair as they criticize "victims" who are still in need of compassion. People in the West do not understand it and are usually surprised by the Polish reaction.

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* "Dlaczego patrzą na nas z góry" by Zdzisław Krasnodębski, a leading Polish sociologist, professor of the university of Bremen (Germany) and UKSW in Warsaw.

Sensitivity is one thing, irrational criticism quite another.

To make it short, so many posts critical Poles and Poland are pretty much a stories about a pot and a kettle.

Not bad, just an unclear situation which goes pretty much along the lines. As for overusing words, you're generalising, most people have words that they overuse, it's a one person's "rage", some people say "Paranoja", other overuse "matko święta" or "git" or "wporzo" or "wypas"... sometimes using certain words is just trendy. Today it is this word tomorrow it'll be a different word. I've always seen it as something obvious...

Here I defend myself. In poland, people who deserve the title are also called professors. How do you distinguish between a University professor and a secondary school teacher?

And btw z_dariusz my native language is Welsh not English. If Poland is so faultless why dont u move back here and why did you ever leave in the first place. I moved here to be with the woman I love, why did you leave Poland and why wont you return.

Actually educational standards in Wales and Scotalnd are very high Z_d but i doubt you researched that fact did you.

That's such a stupid thing to say. People emigrated, emigrate and will emigrate. There is a never-ending number of reasons. Many of emigrants miss their countries, this is natural, yet they are not ready or able to go back.


I don't think that's any of your business. Also, I highly doubt anyone cares why you moved to Poland, or maybe Pola as that's what your nickname says.

welshguy you apparently didnt get the list of rules....Number one is you cannot every say anything that isn't complimentary about Poles or Poland. If you do so you will quickly be censored with one of the following techniques: Counter with an unrelated but distracting argument, blame the commenter and say something about how his/her nation is worse or just as bad, say something like "you clearly don't have any friends", "you are a loser" or "I am not paying attention to you anymore" etc. Get with the program.

I don't understand what is your problem. I often find it hard to understand retards anyway. I clearly disagreed with what welshguyinpola said, that has nothing to do with defending Poles. You obviously don't know much about this forum, do you? It's full of people who actually hate Poland but apparently you have only been here since yesterday so who am I talking to? Anyway, I can't be bothered with a conversation with you at the moment, let me know where you are in 10 years time.

I agree. In Poland those who teach in secondary schools are on the list of those who deserve the title. They distinguish university profs and secondary school profs the same way you distinguish primary school and university students. Or like "close to home" and "close the book". Got it?


It's good you're keeping your ancestors' language. I keep that of mine and I will let you know when you err i regards to my native language, as you did with the word "profesor".


Poland faultless? Where did I say that? Care to quote me, or are you simply desperate for an argument.


That's super. Indeed, I didn't know. I can only judge those standards by your idiotic post.
In that post you take a word that is a borrowing and you stated that it is misused. It is not. That's what the word "profesor" means in Polish. Period.

In fact, the word may have similar meaning in the English language.

There are plenty of borrowings in most languages, with English probably being a world champion with no more than 20% of root vocabulary of truly English origin. Words, when they are borrowed, will at times keep the meaning, other times they won't. Another example in Polish is the word parasol, which came to Polish from French where it denoted a device used to protect a person from the Sun light. Well, in Polish parasol is used to protect people from rain, and sometimes from the Sun. Parapluie was not borrowed.

Another example is the vacuum cleaner. As if vacum needed cleaning. It doesn't as vacuum by definition does not contain any debris or dust. Polish, in this case is more precise, as the name odkurzacz means a device for removing dust.

Some words will change their meanings over time, or acquire new meaning for various reasons. Polish "dziewka" used to be an innocent word. Now it is pejorative. Similarly the English "whore" which was not always as bad as it is perceived today. And why do the English, stupidly, say "oh shit" when the correct expression(when translated from Polish, of course) is "oh, whore"?

Language is a living phenomenon then. It comes as a surprise to me that you, and sadly, Polonius, did not click in with the concept of slang. The word "paranoja" in Polish has the same medical meaning as it has in English. After all both languages borrowed the word. In Polish people managed to give it a secondary meaning. In English they did not. This is skin to English "cool" used to describe, for instance, the latest flavor of coffee. Served hot of course. Polish "chlodny" is not used in the context, although as far as I can tell English "cool" is now being used by some Poles in its secondary (or is it tertiary?) meaning.

Poles do misuse words, as much as people speaking any other language. Languages do not misuse word.

As I mentioned before, criticism is fine in regards to Poland when it is unique to Poland. Otherwise it's plain stupid. You may as well complain that polish shit smells, as if English, German or American shit were used on perfume production. If you complain that it rains in Poland then you're simply bored. WShen you complain that a word means what it does in Polish while it means something else in another language then you're out of it.

Next time when you people post criticism about Poland make sure it criticizes something unique to Poland. Otherwise you will have to continue whining that Poles whine, and by that whining of yours you will loose the right to call Poles whiners.

You call one university professor (profesor uniwersytecki) and the other one professor (Panie profesorze for both if you speak to them directly). It's really that simple.


I understand that you are embarrassed but that is really not very successful attempt to change the subject.


Welshguy often comes on PF with not very thoughtful comments. It's noble of you to rush to his defense but that's overkill.


Don't overplay the good card.

"The reason for the Polish sensivity may come from the fact that we in Poland have been living for a long time in a dependent and totalitarian state where we felt "conquered" yet very proud people, so those who criticize us are unfair as they criticize "victims" who are still in need of compassion."

Hahaha that's a good one, 'vitims', 'in need of compassion', I haven't laughed so much since Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire!

Talk about wallowing in self-pity. Have you not heard the expression 'if you behave like a child you will be treated like one'?