PROPER INFLECTION OF RZECZPOSPOLITA

Like its Latin prototype -- res publica~rei publicae -- its Polish equivalent rzeczpospolita traditonally has inflected both roots rzecz+pospolita, hence
rzeczypospolitej, (gen., dat.), rzeczpospolitą (acc.), rzecząpospolitą (instr.) , etc.
Following the re-emergence of free Poland (1989)this was not beong done with the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita (eg On jest publicystą Rzcszpospolitej) and I was told that was OK when it referred to the paper but not the coutnry. However, more and more one hears "życie w Trzeciej Rzeczpospolitej" rather than "Rzeczyspopolitej". Is that shortcut already acceptable as proper Polish or not?

it's always bee rzeczpospolita.. as far as i can recall it's never been rzeczy.. that makes no sense.

I have checked Markowski's Wielki Słownik Ortograficzny Jęz. Polskiego (1999) which gives both options as equally correct. Personally I prefer the traditonal, more classic and classier sounding "rzeczypospolitej", but to each his own.

cool. rzeczy is plural though that is why i don't think it fits.

here rzeczy is gen. singular. It could be plural (republics) but then the whole thing would be: rzeczypospolitych

rzecz is singular mang. rzeczy is plural.. hmm

sing.
nom. rzecz
gen. rzeczy
dat. rzeczy
acc. rzecz
instr. rzeczą
loc. rzeczy
voc. rzeczy

pl.
nom. rzeczy
gen.rzeczy
dat. rzeczom
acc. rzeczy
instr. rzeczami
loc.rzeczach
voc. rzeczy

As a non-Pole learning Polish, I was surprised to find out that when a noun or a name is made of two words, the first one "inside" the word has to undergo proper declension.

As an example, I was watching Polish TV recently and heard the journalist say "w Białymstoku". A little shock for me, as if Polish weren't complicated enough. Well, it's challenging. Makes you feel alive. :-)

Good day!

Fortunatelly there are very few nouns (composed of noun + adjective) that behave like that. Rzeczpospolita, Białystok, Krasnystaw (a town of 20,000 inhabitants in the Lubelskie voivodship, between Chełm and Zamość) are the main examples.

Btw, do you do you know how to create an adjective of those city names? It's białostocki and krasnostawski (so still according the rule for composed adjectives, like biały + czerwony = białoczerwony).

Some other examples from the dictionary:
so.pwn.pl/zasady.php?id=629457 Słownik ortograficzny PWN online

When the first part is NOT inflected (the biggest group):
swawola, swawoli, swawolę; (originally from swa wola = own will)
mysikrólik, mysikrólika, mysikrólikiem;
lwipyszczek, lwipyszczka, lwipyszczkiem;
żabiściek, żabiścieku, żabiściekiem;
maminsynek, maminsynka, maminsynkiem;

When the first part IS inflected:
woleoczko, wolegooczka, wolimoczkiem;
dwudziestkapiątka, dwudziestkipiątki, dwudziestąpiątką;

When the first part CAN be inflected OR NOT:
Wielkanoc, Wielkanocy, Wielkanocą,
rzeczpospolita, rzeczpospolitej, rzeczpospolitą
or:
Wielkanoc, Wielkiejnocy, Wielkąnocą;
rzeczpospolita, rzeczypospolitej, rzecząpospolitą.

Also the separated spelling is allowed:
Wielka Noc, np. w czasie świąt Wielkiej Nocy.

Another example of an indepedently inflected adective-noun combination is Krasnystaw (a town in the Lublin region, literally -- beautiful pond):
do Krasnegostawu, w Krasnymstawie.
However, at times the adjective merges with the noun (I think in Polish this is called a zrost) and you get Białobrzegi, where the biało part does not change: Do Białobrzegów, w Białobrezgach. .

This is similar to a wide variety of nongeographic adjective-noun, adjective-adjective and noun-noun combinations such as długopis, śrobokręt, krokociąg, wiatrochron, czarnoskóry, małosolny, leworęczny, gładkolufowy, etc.

it must be some kind of trendy hiphop trousers, unless you meant the old, good korkociąg


I already mentioned Krasnystaw, but doesn't krasny come from "red" (at least in today's Russian: krasnyi = red, krassivyi = beautiful) ?

Isn't it true that in Old Polish krasny could mean both beautiful and red. These words alternate variouslty in the difference Slavonic tongues, sometimes producing humorous situaitons.

A Polish commie official in the PRL era was remarking at a commemroation about a Czech woman revolutionary and said soemthign like: U niej był krasny żiwot.

Czech is not my forte, but I think it came out meaning: She had a red belly.
Or how about Żeromski's: "Kakaja krasnaja roża" (a Pole was commenting in what he thought was Russian on a beautiful rose some woman had on her outfit, but it came out as: "What a red snout or mug!")

No but it is true of the Russian Language. The old word for beautiful was krasny, hence krasnaja ploszczid-Red Square, meaning in fact, 'beautiful square' and not Red Square that it has become (wrongly) to signify to this day. Polish is a much more modern language, based on a simplified Russian therefore, Polish lakes the same historical traditions that Russian has.