Language / Polish nationality insults in Polish? [67]

The one you've missed is "judzić" - to instigate.

Also, "Meksyk" is used in reference to a total chaos as well. I think it has slightly different meaning than Sajgon, but I might be wrong (Meksyk would refer to chaos caused by poor organization and/or laziness, as in "Niezły Meksyk muszą mieć w tej firmie, trzy razy przysłali mi nie ten towar co chciałem, a dodzwonić sie do nich nie spoób" = "They seem to have quite a Mexico in this company, they've sent me a wrong product three times and when you call them, no one picks up the phone" while Sajgon would be used simply to refer to a perceived chaos, as when seeing lots of people running around or observing a city traffic in an Asian city - it might even have some kind of underlying sense, but it appears chaotic, just like an ant colony; it also referss to a riot though).

"raz na ruski rok" = once in a russian year = once in a blue moon, although I don't not whether to treat this as an insult.

"Musi to na Rusi (a w Polsce jak kto chce)" = "Have to" is for Russia (and in Poland it's the way one pleases) - this one's tricky, it's usually used to bash Russias' tendency to fall into tyrannic rule, but it can also be used while refering to Polish anarchy/law disorder e.g "In that case, he MUST give you your money back", "Well, musi to na Rusi...".

"Jak świat światem, nie będzie Ruski/Niemiec Polakowi bratem" - As long as the world is the world, a Russian/German won't be a brother to a Pole.

"Podrażnij Rosjanina, a zobaczysz Tatara." - Make a Russian angry and you'll see a Tatar - that is, even if a Russian appears nice and civilized, he simply has to be an uncouth beast deep in his soul:P

Yeah, I'm sure there are countless other sayings bashing Russian winters, alcoholism, aggressiveness, disdain for freedom etc.

"Hiszpan" used to refer to a dead body (as a result of the SPanish flu epidemic) but I don't think it's still used in that sense.

I've also heard the expression "francować" once or twice but I'm not quite sure of its meaning:o

Language / Polish nationality insults in Polish? [67]


Ok, then, but it doesn't really matter what the "real" etymology is, but rather what is the most obvious connotation that the language users might draw. You would obviously need to do some research to back up this claims, but I strongly feel that the majority of those who use the word "judzic"/"podjudzac" would point a "Jude" rather than some proto-slavic roots. You could as well argue that the adjective "ruski" refers to Ruthenia, but that doesn't change the fact that 99% percent of Polish speakers use this word when refering to Russia.

News / Germany provoke Poland using Silesian question. Poland's attitude ? [124]

Poles have no problems with Germany nor Germany has any problem with the Poles. Poles also generally don't like what Russia is doing and don't fell any particular need to associate with the Serbs or any other Balkan "Slavs".

Get over it.

UK, Ireland / Are the Irish welcome in Poland? [24]

Everone loves the Irish!

History / A view of Poland from far far away [14]

Well, I don't know whether the original poster will read this thread after all this time, ut one thing made me curious:


I fortunately was ***** enough not to live during the Cold War, but I honestly thought the US/Western propaganda at that time was kind of different, presenting Eastern Europeans as the poor people enslaved by communists, but not exactly "enemies". Was it really that bad? Were Americans supposed to hate Poles, Czechs or Hungarians and consider they their foes?

I know that the communist propaganda did indeed try to make people hate America but it didn't really succeed, all my relatives I asked said they had rather positive or at worse neutral view of the Americans and didn't really thought of them as the enemies. Of course there was some resentment towards the West, but it was of quite different kind - I'll try to give you an example by the way of a poem wrriten by A. Waligórski in 1980s:

"For the Allies"

YET

Sorry, I my not be the best at translating poetry, but I gues I managed to convey the mening. One more fameous poem would be probably "Raport z oblężonego miasta" ("Report from the besiged city") by Z. Herbert, but it is more peoetic and less straightforward. In any case, I hope you see what I mean.