Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Why would I want to do that? To spread good cheer and joy wherever I turn? ;->


I'm left waiting for the positive one then :-)
Seriously Seanus, I quite like you but most of your Polish people stories are negative and biased. Or condescending. Or a combination of the above.

News / POLISH COPS TO BREATHALISE CANOE USERS.... [30]


No, they are supposed to take a taxi.


Many serious accidents actually take place when the pilot overrides what they think is a computer error (and turns out not to be one).


1) Maybe someone finally realised that the potential was there.
2) It's not about harm to others here as much as about harm to yourself, the drunk canoeist, if you will. ;-)

I like to drink beer on the river. As long as I know the river and know what's coming (never easy even on a river you think you know BTW). But there is a lot of Sunday kayakers out there who drink themselves silly and think they can tell the river what to do. Never a good idea.

News / POLISH COPS TO BREATHALISE CANOE USERS.... [30]

The last I heard, canoes were not equipped with autopilots and other computerised whatnots that basically do all the hard work for you. Also, a canoe tends to get stuck under a fallen log with the crew trapped underwater and left fighting against a strong current in about 30 seconds. Airplane accidents don't happen that fast.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]



What gives you the right to decide for this guy? He might have wanted to wash his hands twice (I usually do) and maybe he likes having really dry hands. By leaving the door open you embarrassed him. Ever thought of that? Why can't you see the other side of a situation such as this? Why do you think you are right and everyone else is wrong?


I am very sorry you had such a traumatic experience with the Lukas Bank people. If it makes you feel any better, I have had similarly unpleasant experiences with Lloyds TSB and Barclays staff over a number of years, both in person and over the phone - and so what? I don't go around posting my tragic encounters to all and sundry and calling Britishers infuriatingly bureaucratic and slow on the uptake.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Care to explain why we should learn to do that?

News / POLISH COPS TO BREATHALISE CANOE USERS.... [30]


what naughty practices? amending existing bills and suchlike?

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


I am half Polish (the Polish half consisting of East Prussia Germans, Catholic Belorussians, and Kashubians), and half Czech ;-) but I was definitely raised in Poland and that's what ultimately counts, I guess ;-)

News / POLISH COPS TO BREATHALISE CANOE USERS.... [30]

Learn to read. It's an amendment of the existing bill, to include water sports.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Exactly, we were brought up in different cultures. I don't go around "aportioning" blame. I just know when it was me and say sorry instinctively, while expecting the same in return. I won't apologise if someone steps on my toes or spills a drink over me, or walks right into me because they were not looking. When I do such things, I apologise profusely. In the UK though, I know what's expected and grovel accordingly even if I am the victim ;-)


In YOUR culture it is. And if you wish to hang on to your idea of courtesy, you might just have to get used to the fact that most people will not acknowledge it in Poland. At least not in a busy street or walking out a door with a crowd of people.

Sorry...

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Well, they have tacitly agreed to your smoking as well, so take advantage while you can ;-p

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Sounds like a non-Pole to me.
Additionally my bad as well, I took aphrodisiac for a male (didn't check the gender thingy). She just sounded male in the post. ;-)

News / POLISH COPS TO BREATHALISE CANOE USERS.... [30]


We're not talking about this level of "drunk" here at all. I do some canoeing and I know that alcohol and swift rivers with stretches of rapids and / or windy expanses of lake don't mix too well. And I enjoy my beer too. Also, the fines would start at 20 PLN for minor offences, so don't get your panties in a twist.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]

I know, right?

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


And how do we know that she didn't ask nicely (at least at first?). Her exact words were never quoted, so I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Also, if she was Polish and speaking English, she might have phrased her request a little bluntly for the refined Anglo-Saxon ears of her companion. Nevertheless, if a I smoked (I don't) around someone and they were unhappy with it, I would tend to put my cigarette out just for good old courtesy's sake. Also, when you light up in the presence of a lady, you are supposed to ask for permission first. Old-fashioned maybe, but a solution to our poster's past, present, and future problems with uptight Polish women who hate cigarette smoke.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


It was a street festival involving sitting at tables (as per opening post). Once you sit down at a table with other people, the rules of the game tend to change a little. Also, you are not allowed to smoke in the UK at open-air bus stops or railway platforms, how is that different at all?

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Who was being rude here, I wonder... or at least vastly inconsiderate?

Life / Uptight Poles [262]


Well, it is in this thread, or at least was.


Well, don't then. Hold the door for people who care about you and whom you care about, and they will thank you for it. Strangers are exactly that in Polish culture - strangers. If you shower them with attention they don't expect or want, they have the right to not thank you for it.


If you were in their way in the first place, you are expected to be doing the apologising. Polish people will not say sorry for someone else's blunder or fault. That's a typically British thing to do. If, however, they were in your way, they will say sorry - and these are probably the "exceptions" you speak of.

Life / Uptight Poles [262]

First, foreigners come to PL and complain incessantly about the stupid Poles who smoke everywhere and pollute the air those poor foreigners are then forced to breathe. A few years go by. Polish people gradually start seeing smoking as a bad habit and something you should not be doing in close vicinity to others (like during a street festival, I guess). Then, it turns out they are uptight, ignorant, and controlling, because they have the temerity to tell a smoking foreigner that their smoke is not welcome.

MORAL: THE FOREIGNER IS ALWAYS RIGHT

Life / The REAL Warsaw :-) Video clip. [43]


Oh no no no I didn't - I quoted the song! Don't you even remember its lyrics? ;->


It's a very modern (I might even say riskily modern) rendition of a song that was already (sorry Antek, but I have to say it like it is) languishing in the artistic graveyard of all old-fashioned and musically dated songs... I would never, ever listen to the original for pleasure. It was rammed down my throat too many times by too many "real" Warszawa snobs like yourself, and I find it boringly sentimental... ;-p Nevertheless, I gave this remake one chance and decided to see what it was like. And I loved it immediately - making me realise that the lyrics remain poweful and timeless, even youthful, but the original music was no longer doing them any favours. At all. It actually made me listen to the lyrics for once!


A guy getting a shave at a rather seedy barbershop; a Turkish kebab guy; lads from the Uprising; a devout Jew with two White Power henchmen; a University lecturer at a Bar Mleczny; a young guy at a night club; a cyclist; a workman with a cigarette hanging from his lip; two hooligan types; a guy in a frock coat and a taxi driver; a guy at a skating rink, a boxing club, a shopping mall (hanging out with the galerianki); a businessman; a bartender; some probably rich guy with three secretary types wearing bunny outfits; and my favourite, the Warsaw Mermaid in lovely gray tights at a night club, looking really threatening.

- Yeah, they are all wearing suits and looking official. Riiight. BTW, the main character in each scene is the same actor, I hope you noticed.

I absolutely love the way they have woven together a rich tapestry of Warsaw lives both past and present, including minorities and people you might tend to forget about, and shown them all as the people of Warszawa, always defiant in the face of the enemy. This is exactly Grzesiuk's message by the way, but he lived in a different time and that time is gone now and no amount of propaganda on your part, Antek, will bring it back. ;-p


I tend to think that one is forever the citizen of the place they grew up in. I have lived in London, Ełk, Toruń, and other place since leaving Warszawa, but I would not consider myself a Londoner or citizen of Ełk, for example. Believe you me, I come back often and I know my city well. I used to hate it once, but distance makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever.


Exactly; I had a go at your links; and what you are giving me is Warsaw folklore. Old songs sung the old way, or new songs sung the old way. I do not want old-style cutesy folksy tunes to hum along to. I want modern, youthful, different (in short: CONTEMPORARY) stuff that makes me think and reconsider stuff. I want outside the musical comfort zone, you want to sit inside it. To each their own.

One last piece of advice - don't mess with a Wola girl!

;-p

Life / The REAL Warsaw :-) Video clip. [43]


Dear Antek,

my father settled in Warszawa in 1960, and I came to live there around 1972 as a toddler and left as an adult in 1992. My childhood, youth, and early adulthood are all connected to this city. I went to primary and secondary school there, as well as to university. My father spent all his life teaching at Warsaw University and still lives in Warszawa today. Oh yeah - one of my children was born in Warszawa, as well. "Taking all into account, you should avoid teaching me what is Warsaw and what is not." ;->

My Warszawa is very much the city portrayed by "projekt warszawiak". The places and types of people it portrays sum up the spirit of present-day Warszawa to me in a way that nobody has done in a long time. I don't like "Warszawa" by Muniek Staszczyk BTW. I think it's fake and artistically mediocre ;-p


...are you threatening me...? ;-p

Life / The REAL Warsaw :-) Video clip. [43]

I guess that's a risk we must all be prepared to take ;-p

Life / The REAL Warsaw :-) Video clip. [43]


That is definitely a tad harsh. Do you mean to tell me that the last 67 years of the lives of the millions of people who call Warszawa home are somehow fake or not "varsovian" enough? You are a snob, dear sir. I also see that you have not understood "projekt warszawiak" at all.


The original is an iconic post-war song about how Warsaw and its people were and are defiant and undefeated, to quote "if you wish to pick a fight with us, buy yourself a coffin first". ;-)

Life / The REAL Warsaw :-) Video clip. [43]

I'm beginning to think you have to be born and bred (or at least bred) in Warsaw to really understand and appreciate "projekt warszawiak". Every single image and stereotype in this clip rings 100% true and authentic :-) Also, I really love the way they'd taken an old-fashioned song set to sentimental music and shown its real potential and ferocious lyrics (with which, by the way, any true warszawiak will agree completely!).

Genealogy / Do you think all Slavs are white? [178]


I just wanted to second that. Well written and to the point. Thank you.

Language / Meaning of the words: na północy/południu? [10]


Actually, its "jih" :-)

Language / Meaning of the words: na północy/południu? [10]

Południe - pół dnia (half day, noon).
Północ - pół nocy (half night, midnight).

That's were you need to start. The geographical terms are only loosely related to that.
E.g. in Czech you say "půlnoc" for midnight, but "sever" for north.

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


This.


As well as this.


And this.

Thank you, Ziemowit, for saying it as it is :-)

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]


"Menedżer" is something of an umbrella term - it's anyone with corporate decision-making powers, whereas both "kierownik" and "zarządca" have much more specific connotations. E.g. every "dyrektor" is by definition a "menedżer" as well; now try calling him / her a "kierownik" and watch their wrath unfold ;-)


Exactly. Are you now beginning to understand why new words are coined or borrowed from other languages in the first place? The fact that a new word creates a new reality is what it's all about. Once the new reality or new need has been created, you cannot say that the word is not necessary! It doesn't matter if the new need is there first (like the need to name a new invention) or if the word helps us name something we never thought of giving a distinct name before (as in the case of the coach / trener split). If not enough people use "coach" though, the word will quietly disappear from use in a matter of years.


People still say "firma budowlana" a lot in the proper context. "Deweloper" is not just any old "firma budowlana" - it's a large, powerful investor who employs the above-mentioned "firmy budowlane".


"Anulować" and "cofać" are both "to cancel"

"Skasować" = "to delete"

Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

Are we talking about the Polish or the English meaning of the word?