UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]

I think they're doing exactly what they were doing before Poland joined EU and they could give the guys legal jobs. Problem in UK is everyone likes cheap baked beans but don't want to know how they can be produced so cheaply.

UK, Ireland / No job unless you're Polish [201]

I suspect that it is more a case that the training sessions were for Polish workers.

Mind you, next week the DM will run a story of how the Poles were actually used as meat, and british pigs and cows will be protesting about these foreigners coming over and stealing their jobs.


At last, we are getting back to the good old days! The Empire returns!

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]

Here's the latest!

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1257784/Biggest-Asda-meat-supplier-excludes-English-speakers-instructions-given-Polish.html

Of course, next week DM will run a story about how the meat factory are using Polish workers as the meat, and british cows and pigs will be protesting about all these foreigners coming over and stealing their jobs.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


So answer me the other one. You said you liked nasty jokes. So which kind? Give me an example.

Sounds to me like you don't mind offensive jokes until they tread on your toes, which sounds a bit hypocritical.


Better, but stretching it.


I do actually understand, and respect, that some people have different boundaries. That's OK. It's good. I just have slightly more extreme ones than you, perhaps. You really would not want to hear the ones which make me squirm!

That said, it has long been a trait to laugh about the horrific because sometimes the reality is too hard to deal with at a certain time. I've known people pale at 9/11 jokes who would laugh at a Hiroshima joke. Sometimes distance and context are what make a joke permissable.

However, you said you liked 'nasty jokes', so as I said, give me an example and I'll tell you why someone else would find it offensive.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]

Angela Merkel, Bratwurst Boy, are two.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


No, because the counterbalance of the joke isn't there. There is no running joke about Polish comedy being bad. germans are not supposed to have a sense of humour. the German sense of humour is nothing to laugh about.

This is what i mean about the mechanics.

Now, it could be argued I'm being racist by laughing at a stereotype of humourless Germans, especially as I know it to be untrue as I have a few in the family. So which part of the joke then becomes unacceptable? The racist bit i don't believe or the idea the destruction of civilians (or soldiers), which i also don't believe in.


So give me an example of a nasty joke that's OK then.

History / just before the war the Polish/Ukrainian szlachta learned Ukrainian [243]

Yes, I'd heard that. It's probably the only thing Greece and Bulgaria agree on. Of course, if they can say it isn't a language then they can say it isn't an ethnicity. therefore, no macedonian minority in greece/Bulgaria, so no human rights violations.

I once saw a book written in Serbian,(from about 1900), where the author was paid to go around Macedonia to show it was Bulgarian (paid by the Bulgarians), and finished up writing that it was Serbian. Quite funny!

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]

I appreciate the technical humour in a lot of jokes, whether or not I choose to say them in public is a different matter.

I found it funny a few years ago that people suddenly got very sensitive about a ferry sinking off the coast of Belgium. If you told Herlad of free Enterprise jokes you were 'sick', but if you'd told Titanic jokes a week before you were funny.

Concentration camp jokes/ I've been told these by Poles, with Kowalski as the 'hero'.

History / just before the war the Polish/Ukrainian szlachta learned Ukrainian [243]


Thanks. It was the latin I was wondering about.

[quote=Nathan]

Thanks. very interesting.

You mention Macedonian; interesting slavonic language with no cases and it has an article.

UK, Ireland / Considering opening a Polish restaurant in the UK. [9]

There was one in the basement of the Polish club in Glasgow. Quite good.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


Only on trunk roads.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


They're bigger.


it probably had it written on the front "This is a Romanian Bible". Everyone knows East Europeans would have one like that. Good job it wasn't a multi-lingual Gideon Bible or half of Europe would have been blamed too.

Of course, maybe the Bible was open at a page in "Romans", so it showed it was Romanian.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


Agreed (but these were the garda, after all). However, my UK/EU licence has DRIVING LICENCE above the UK sign. It has nothing else on that line. Then it has my names below. The Rzeczpospolita Polska writing has no equivalent on my licence (don't know what Irish ones look like, but there is no other writing saying "United Kingdom", just the EU flag.). And if you don't speak Polish, that might mean "Polish Driving Licence".

Also my licence has no "permis de conduire". Going by the lines, "prwo jazdy" is about where my names would be.

Possible to make a mistake like that.

History / just before the war the Polish/Ukrainian szlachta learned Ukrainian [243]


Cool. Thanks.

This may seem like a stupid question, but was Polish the main admistrational language of the Commonwealth?

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


yeah, that's why the (identical) stories have been on Yahoo for about 2-3 days before they arrive in the metro.

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


In theory, no. However, think about the irish Mr Prawo Jazdy story. How long did it take the irish police to realise the mistake there?

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]

It would just depend on how much effort the police made to track the owner (probably the newspaper itself) down. Sadly, the police are too overloaded with other things to probably be able to bother (at least, that's what the paper might be thinking).

News / Illegal drugs in the EU - Polish gangs are top sellers [56]


Source? Proof? issue number of the daily mail?

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]


Nice one!

History / just before the war the Polish/Ukrainian szlachta learned Ukrainian [243]


The question is how much a local Polish accent/dialect at that time would have been removed from a Ukrainian one. Obviously, standard versions of the languages (plus the writing system) would have been very different, but what about 'on the ground'.

Any one got any ideas?

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


I agree. Ah, but weight, if you disagree with a Pole you are obviously a nazi!

It never occurs to people that he might be winding them up?

UK, Ireland / The Daily Mail - coverage of the Polish people [161]

How disgusting... imagine actually catching a fish with a hook, ripping it's top lip apart and... eating the fish! My god, don't these Polish savages realise that fish don't come from the river, they come from the frozen section of Tesco?

And how dare they steal swans... there'll be none left for the anglers to poison with their lead weights.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


I like that!

Genealogy / Why anyone would think I'm from Poland? Ethnic iD, and perception. [25]

I was once travelling from Bugaria to Macedonia on a bus, withan American friend. At the border a guard came on and spoke to the driver. My friend laughed, "The guard just asked if all the passengers were Macedonian and Bulgarian. The driver said, 'No, I've got an American and a Finn as well."

Seems I was the Finn-for-the-day.

UK, Ireland / Which country is more corrupt - Poland or the UK? [35]

Probably UK, but Britain is more subtle and sophisticated with it's corruption.

Language / English borrowings in Polish [38]


Exactly. For me what bored me was all these teachers ranting on about how great some writers were but not actually being able to show us how and why.

I remember one guy ramming it down our necks how Dylan Thomas was so great but I couldn't see it the way he preached. A few years later....

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]

It was the Italians. The Polish cavalry DID attack an armoured unit (but not tanks) and successfully held it back (to the admiration of the wehrmacht). The Italians wrote about it but the Nazis distorted it for propaganda.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


OK, now I've had enough of this racist cr@p.

Mediawatch, you're squealing on about 'racism' and 'anti-Polish' jokes, but you have some vitriolic hatred in you and you're basically a fascist. YOU are the excuse Hitler used.

I'm not even a Kraut and I despise your racist ranting.

How many Boxheads have you met? Probably they are all like you "Wah! Wah! I'm so hard done by, I'll hate someone else and make out I'm so pure!"

There was a thread recently about whether Poles are racist. Shame you weren't on there it would have proved a point.

Before you ask, YES, I have Huns in my family. My brother was married to a Jerry and we have three lovely, female Krauts in my family. I suppose you hate them and blame them just because they are Huns, yes?

You speak of German anti-semitism but I bet you ingore the fact that most of EUROPE HAS A SIMILAR IDEA ABOUT pOLES (INCORRECTLY, BUT DO YOU EVER ASK YOURSELF WHY?)

Get some therapy and enjoy being an American. They really are nice people, you know.

Life / COMBATING "POLACK" JOKES [460]


It's quite a common phenomenon amongst any migrant/ex-pat community.

I mean, how often have you seen a 'real' Irishman wearing leprechaun outfits and singing Danny Boy whilst drinking green Guinness, but all around the world people seem to think it's a way of proclaiming their 'irishness' every march 17th.

Same as Scots. Most Scots I've known have never owned a kilt or spoken Gaelic, but the migrants (myself included) thrive on it (although I don't speak Gaelic).

It's almost like a kind of in-built inferiority complex about 'am I a REAL ....... (insert nationality)? It produces a kind of hyper-national identity.'

It's often a case when a community is moved 'back' into a country (like Greeks being moved from Turkey in 1920's, or Turks from Bulgaria and Greece.) The incoming population are often viewed a little askew by the residents so they become hyper. Often they are relocated in border areas, where they are able to defend their 'motherland'.

Language / English borrowings in Polish [38]


A good point. Mind you, as far as Chaucer and Shakespeare are concerned, most British kids can't understand modern English, let alone Middle English or 17th century English.

Shame, cos Chaucer's pretty racey!