Language / Calling a person a 'potato' (ziemniak/kartofel/burak) [37]

I've never heard anybody calling anyone "potato" (ziemniak, kartofel - the second one considered incorrect).

In Wielkopolska there is a dialect word "pyra", which means quite the same as "potato". Sometimes people from Wielkopolska are called by other people "pyra", or "pyry". It's not derogatory, but not quite nice as well.

Oh, and some time ago there was this fus when a German paper called Kaczynski twins "kartofle" ("potatos"), so maybe that's when it's started?

Language / Calling a person a 'potato' (ziemniak/kartofel/burak) [37]

I think there's no english equivalent of "pyra", but I'm not sure. Pyra means just "potato".

It's something like british english "bloke", and general english (yeap, I'm making up terms now :D) "guy" - a guy is a bloke, and a bloke is a guy.

Rolnik is not derogatory, but if you would like to offend somebody you can call him "wieśniak". It's offensive, so if you call some that be sure he's no match for you, otherwise he will beat the crap out of you (I would). "Wieśniak" to some extend means "rolnik", but it is used to describe stupid people, or people with no manners. To be frank when you're polish you don't think much about the meaning of words in which you offend other people :)