Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]

I don't know, but it looks like the light fixture for my fish tank.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]


Many a time I was gaping at these lamps (or lamping at these gaps... PL lampić się = gapić się), thinking about something else, everything, anything but the lesson...

so where is the place where they still survived?

News / There's still hope for Poland! [19]

Fakt.pl has reported Polonius3’s associates saying that the P3 was displaying mood swings and had panic in his eyes. “He is swinging between radical solutions – either a frontal attack or a pull-back, and his threads are therefore unpredictable,” unnamed associates were reported as saying. On a single day they were twice called to the Polish Forums for emergency threads.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]

Tytuń sie susy...
dried up tobacco leaves.

What about the lamps? I remember the design from my school times. Do you mean they are historic, or something?

Life / Poland and every aspect..... Please help me learn and understand the realities? [108]

P3, did you see this thread?
The beginning of the Polish state

Food / Where can I get free yeast to bake with in Poland? [11]

You can buy fresh yeast in most grocery stores. Look for "drożdże", usually they're located in the refrigerators close to dairy products and cost about 1 zł for a 100 g packet.

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Life / Poland and every aspect..... Please help me learn and understand the realities? [108]


Aren't you Irish, Teflcat? If so, just think St. Patrick's Day, it's like the whole country's nameday.
The namedays came from the idea of saint patrons. In older times people usually gave their children names of saints and the saint was supposed to protect and guide the baby through life, therefore the day associated with a saint was special for the person named after them.

There were lots of Catholic saints so practically every day of the year had a patron or two.
Also, a child often got the name which it "brought itself" coming to this world - meaning that a child born on St. John's day got the name John, and so on. This way, the birthday and the nameday were on the same day.

Another thing is that in older times the saints or church holidays were the usual way of telling time. Nobody knew when, let's say, 17th February was - in any case, it took some serious thinking and lots of calculating - but everybody knew St. Agnes' or St. Gregory's day.

The Protestant churches got rid of the saints, so just the birthdays remained. In Poland though, celebrating birthdays is a relatively new thing. Even my parents didn't do it when they were kids.

One more factor is that the official birth dates often did not correspond with the real ones. In my family, most of the aunts and uncles who were born shortly before the war, during the war or just after the war, have double birth dates - the real ones and the official ones, written in the documents. They were born at home and although there was an obligation to register a child within a given period of time, sometimes weeks passed before anybody had a chance to do it. And there were fines for not registering on time, so they didn't think twice about giving the registry office a wrong, later date. One of my aunts was born in October 1942 but the documents state January 1943.

Also, the namedays were convenient - you did not need to remember all the individual birth dates, but everybody in Poland knows when Barbaras or Stanisławs celebrate their namedays :)

Genealogy / Coats of arms of Polish cities [51]


The village Bochotnica still exists in the area. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bochotnica

Genealogy / What does Germanised mean? [29]


That's hilarious, but very telling. Indeed, nothing is clear-cut with these territories and these peoples.

History / The beginning of the Polish state [11]


I'm not a historian but I've read a few times that the stories about the Polans, Vistulans etc. seen to have been invented by 19th c historians who cared more about strenghtening the sense of national identity than about historical truth.

Certainly there were Slavic tribes living in the territory of today's Poland, some of them quite powerful and significant, especially in the southern part, Wiślica being the biggest centre of power for a couple of centuries. It remains a mystery though why the centre of power shifted to Gniezno in the 10th century and how the process of unification went. There are also a lot of mysteries concerning Prince Mieszko, even his nationality (or ethnicity, if you prefer) is not clear. There are theories that he might have been a Norwegian Viking, or closely related to them.


Barney, there are no written sources from the period, all we have is legends and what the archeologists manage to dig up. So it's not clear at all. Some hints are concentrated around Wiślica in the south, some other in Wielkopolska (Gniezno, Biskupin, the Gopło lake). Nobody knows what was really going on there. At school we were taught the stuff about Polans, Vistulans etc. - what Pawian wrote above, but the present date historians hold most of it in serious doubt.

Anyway, it's very probable that there existed a strong and prominent tribal state in the south of today's Poland. Some serious digging in the Krak Mound (Kopiec Kraka) in Kraków could perhaps explain a thing or two.

Language / What is the proper term for Gesundheit ? [7]


In the version I know the first three rows of the participants were escorted out and shot before the sneezing culprit admitted his guilt :)

Language / What is the proper term for Gesundheit ? [7]

Na zdrowie is fine to, when someone's sneezing.

Travel / Poland in photo riddles [3134]

It's doing a sentence behind bars for stealing your lettuce?

Language / How to say, "let's go!" in Polish [16]

Fine, but it's not for cheering in sports, and this was the original question.

Life / Are surf/skate clothes popular among Polish kids? [15]


Yes, I see lots of inspiration coming from the Cossacks culture.Nothing new, really.

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USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


Yes, of course.


I wonder what Polonius' opinion would be.

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]

Have you seen this? You might find it an interesting watch.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(film)

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


I see. Well, the love for the sinners is truly permeating all your posts.

Language / The longest polish word in existence is..... [23]


Depends what its actual age is :)

I'm still not on facebook and don't spend much time on youtube, but with PF you have a point :)

Language / The longest polish word in existence is..... [23]

And to think that I remember times when there was no Google. I even remember the pre-Internet era!
I feel as old as Dąb Bartek :(
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartek_(tree)

Life / Are surf/skate clothes popular among Polish kids? [15]

Rings a bell...

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UK, Ireland / Poles becoming British subjects [39]


As Britain is a monarchy, all the citizens are royal subjects at the same time - or am I wrong?

USA, Canada / Who is better informed, the expat or the Polonia crowd? [144]


Polonius, as a devout Christian aren't you supposed to love all facets of God's creation?

Language / The longest polish word in existence is..... [23]


Good one! I didn't even know it. Cats, how did you find it?
My question was supposed to be a joke, the answer being Uć (£ódź).

Language / The longest polish word in existence is..... [23]

now something from the opposite end: do you know a city in Poland with a two-letter name?

Genealogy / Poles born under Russian control - are we Russian? [29]


Nope :) not Prussian, but German, yes... after all my ancestors lived under the General Government.

Genealogy / Poles born under Russian control - are we Russian? [29]


Then I'm Austrian too. And Hungarian.

News / Kaczyński presents alternative to PO thievery [26]

First I expect him to build the 3 000 000 apartments he promised when coming into the office in 2005.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


Automatic transmission is rare so it's harder to drive when talking on the phone.

Language / Nominative (Mianownik) vs Accusative (Biernik)? [17]


Because it's "taking a bath", the name of the activity.
Siedzę w kąpieli - I'm sitting in a bathtub full of water.
Kąpiel gotowa - the bath is ready.
"Kąpiel" basically means getting wet.
The thing that you have in your bathroom is called wanna. Kąpiel w wannie - taking a bath in a bathtub. But kąpiel w jeziorze means swimming in a lake.


You can, but the dictionary doesn't know which meaning of a word you need. You looked up "bath" and got "kąpiel". If you had checked "bathtub", you'd have got "wanna". Best to get a dictionary which gives examples of usage in sentences, this helps a lot.

I'm sure you'll do better next year :)