wysłać SMS-a / SMS-y

Hello,

On this form there is a good article on how to apply endings to foreign names, using apostrophe: polishforums.com/applying_declensions_english-18_29194_0.html

I'm wondering what the rule is when adding a "minus" sign between a name made of initials and its ending, like in the example I wrote :

"wysłać SMS-a" (-y for plural)

Thanks

yeah,

wysyłać SMS-y

is a valid form.
and its not a minus; its a myślnik :>

yes, because you have to think deeply between SMS and 'y'.... ;)

LOL. Yeah, even I got it ;-)

Thanks for the replies, but it's not really the answer to my question. What is the rule to use a myślnik between a word and its ending when declined?

Cheers ;-)

You simply use it before the endings added to acronyms:
(Nom) SMS, (Gen) SMS-a, (Dat) SMS-owi, (Acc) SMS or SMS-a, (Inst) SMS-ie, (Loc) SMS-em. Also in plural (SMS-y, SMS-ów and so on).
If you choose the other spelling (esemes), which is correct according to dictionaries, but (for now) less common, you don't need the "myślnik" (esemes, esemesa, esemesowi, esemes or esemesa, esemesie, esemesem, Plural esemesy, esemesów etc.), because in Polish you don't use this graphic sign (-) in normal declension.

On a side note, there are two forms (in singular) possible:
Wysłać SMS
Wysłać SMS-a
the first one (SMS) is "more correct" according to the historical declension rules for non-animate male nouns (*), but the second one (SMS-a) is stronger in the modern language, where newly introduced male nouns (SMS or esemes, e-mail or mail) and some a little older (gem, set, but not mecz!) assume the declension of the animate male nouns, and things get pretty ugly here, because they also change the grammatical form required for an adjective! (**)

(*) Accusative case (biernik) of male nouns is typically identical
1/ with the Nominative case (mianownik), so no additional ending, for non-animate nouns, for example:
widzę/słyszę/kupuję/wysyłam (and many, many other verbs) stół, komputer, telefon, tapczan, list, żyrandol, dywan etc.
2/ with the Genitive case (dopełniacz), so usually -a ending, for animate nouns, for example:
widzę/słyszę/kupuję/odwiedzam ... ojca, syna, brata, studenta, psychologa, lekarza, psa, konia, kota, ślimaka, pierwotniaka, wirusa etc.

(**) Examples with adjectives
Accusative male noun + adjective
(animate nouns, "młody pies" = "young dog")
Widzę młodego psa.
(non-animate nouns, "nowy dom" = "new house")
Widzę nowy dom.

If you decide to use the historically correct declension:
Wysyłam długi e-mail, SMS, list.
Venus Williams przegrała pierwszy set 5-7, po czym wygrała morderczy tie-break (18-16) w drugim secie.
If you choose the declension prevailing in the modern language:
Wysyłam długiego e-maila, SMS-a (you can't use it with "list").
Venus Williams przegrała pierwszego seta 5-7, po czym wygrała morderczego tie-breaka (18-16) w drugim secie.

Krzysztof,

Thanks for this very comprehensive comment. I was indeed surprised that words such as "mail" and "SMS" should be applied the "-a" ending in the biernik case, as they are not animate things. My Polish friend couldn't find any explanation for that and just told me "well, that's how we write them anyway". So, it is just a change in modern language.

a o czym chcesz niby gadać he???

I'm just wondering how to explain "strzelić gola" ("gola" - the accusative of a non-animate noun) as it is not correct to say "strzelić gol", so the theory of modern versus historic usage cannot be applied here.

Maybe the word "gol" isn't that old in Polish as you think :)
Besides, this process is now so wide-spread, so it must have started a while ago, not just over night. Structural language changes take a lot of time before they become common for most users.

You've missed my point, though. Certainly, the word "gol" is not that old, yet it is much older than the word "SMS or esemes". Despite that, it declines according only to the "modern", as you call it, pattern while the "esemes" which is one of the newest words in the Polish language, declines - as you said - according to either historic or modern pattern. Personally, I don't know the explanation to the problem, but your theory of modern and historic usage in the declension of certain non-animate nouns doesn't seem to be accurate.

Is it not just because Polish people think of gol as being animate? i.e. a gol has some type of animate quality?

I'm not exactly sure what you are looking for here - whether you are looking for a translation/explanation into English, or to explain the reasoning behind the change of endings in Polish, so I apologise if this is incorrect.

"strzelić gola" means to score a goal, whereas "strzelić gol" would be to score goal, and therefore would be grammatically incorrect (and would follow why Poles sometimes make errors in English like "I want cup of tea please").

Likewise, it is possible to "strzelić gola w bramkę", i.e. "shoot at goal and score a goal", because in English, a goal can refer to the act of scoring, as well as the "net" (bramka) through which one scores the goal itself.

If that's not what you're looking for, I'm sure someone who knows what they are talking about will be along in a minute, lol ;)

This theory isn't mine, some linguists say so.
My opinion: the animate male nouns group is so "strong" and often used in everyday speech (just think of all the male names, professions etc.) that it gradually overshadows other declension patterns for masculin nouns. It may even lead to the creation of an uniform masculin gender in the future, but first we (and our descendants) will face this chaotic transition period, where more and more words will NOT behave accordingly to historical patterns.

For me the accusative case (biernik) of "gol" should equal the nominative (mianownik), so I can't really explain why in hell it became "gola" (= dative, dopełniacz), but of course I say "strzelić gola" as everybody does, just can't justify this form and that's why I expect a real mess in the Polish language in the near future.

Naturally, the Poles will do fine, but for those who start to learn Polish not as kids, but as grown-ups it will be even more difficult than it is now.

This comparison of yours is a very interesting remark showing how mistakes made by non-native speakers are "felt" by the native ones. It illustrates that learning is good only when it crosses the "scolastics" and gets into the "imagination". As, for example, the native speakers of English imagine seperated unidentified entities only as object which must be preceded by an indefinite article, a substuntial number of Polish learners would recklessly drop the "a" before an entity such as "cup of tea", just because the principle of a separated entity hasn't been "imprinted" into their imagination, while the meaning of a word has been imprinted into the "scolastic" part of their brain.

[I will comment on the remark of Krzysztof later on.]