Xupicor
18 Apr 2011
Language / Polish nationality insults in Polish? [67]
Someone here had doubts that everything with added "Ruski" (bit pejorative for "Russian", it lost its historical meaning in common usage) had pejorative meaning - well, I heard a lot of examples to that. People sometimes say things like "Jakiś ruski ten zegarek..." - sorry, I can't translate it properly, it sounds really bad in English. It could be something along the lines of "This watch is 'somehow Russian'..." - not really meaning it was made in Russia, but that it's probably inferior, badly made, etc.
"Raz na ruski rok" ("Once a Russian year") - it'd mean that something happens rarely, once in a long time, also "Ruski miesiąc" ("Russian month") also means "a long time" and is commonly used in a threat "Ruski miesiąc popamiętasz!" ("You'll remember it for a Russian month!") - meaning something (probably a sever punishment) will be remembered for a long time. ;)
But more generally if something was called "Ruski" it was meant to diss, to call something primitive, inferior. Our two nations have a long history of wars and occupation, so it really isn't something surprising. ;)
But it's also true that sometimes "Ruski" or "Radziecki" ("Soviet") meant "sturdy" and "long-lasting". If it was so because of the quality of a given product or propaganda is a totally different topic. ;)
Nowadays I think "Ruski" lost a lot of the pejorative meaning, but it still is used this way.
Rarely used now, although I heard it on several occasions: "Tu nie Ukraina!" (more or less "We're not in Ukraine!", "It's not Ukraine here!") meaning "We've got laws here!" - which would refer to the times when Ukraine was a part of the Commonwealth. It also could refer to the origins of the word "Ukraina" which would probably be "U krańca" or something like it, more or less about a land away from here, somewhere "close to the border". ;)
Someone here had doubts that everything with added "Ruski" (bit pejorative for "Russian", it lost its historical meaning in common usage) had pejorative meaning - well, I heard a lot of examples to that. People sometimes say things like "Jakiś ruski ten zegarek..." - sorry, I can't translate it properly, it sounds really bad in English. It could be something along the lines of "This watch is 'somehow Russian'..." - not really meaning it was made in Russia, but that it's probably inferior, badly made, etc.
"Raz na ruski rok" ("Once a Russian year") - it'd mean that something happens rarely, once in a long time, also "Ruski miesiąc" ("Russian month") also means "a long time" and is commonly used in a threat "Ruski miesiąc popamiętasz!" ("You'll remember it for a Russian month!") - meaning something (probably a sever punishment) will be remembered for a long time. ;)
But more generally if something was called "Ruski" it was meant to diss, to call something primitive, inferior. Our two nations have a long history of wars and occupation, so it really isn't something surprising. ;)
But it's also true that sometimes "Ruski" or "Radziecki" ("Soviet") meant "sturdy" and "long-lasting". If it was so because of the quality of a given product or propaganda is a totally different topic. ;)
Nowadays I think "Ruski" lost a lot of the pejorative meaning, but it still is used this way.
Rarely used now, although I heard it on several occasions: "Tu nie Ukraina!" (more or less "We're not in Ukraine!", "It's not Ukraine here!") meaning "We've got laws here!" - which would refer to the times when Ukraine was a part of the Commonwealth. It also could refer to the origins of the word "Ukraina" which would probably be "U krańca" or something like it, more or less about a land away from here, somewhere "close to the border". ;)