Help with idiomatic translation ...

I found a cute Polish meme on the internet. It's a painting of a young girl sitting on the front steps of her home, lost in thought. She is asking "Do you think this is a nice place?" (According to Google translate) And her dog is sitting next to her with its head on on her shoulder, staring off in the same direction. The dog seems to be thinking "Sznur troche w prawo" which Google says is "Rope a little to the right." Is the dog asking her to scratch him a little to the right? Move a little to the right? Or something else entirely?

Thanks for any help. I've been wondering for over a year now.

• 
  Here's the original.
  

My (admittedly dark) understanding

Girl: Do you think this is a good place, doggie?
Dog: Put the rope a little to the right

(she's going to hang herself and the dog is advising her for maximum noose placement)

Thanks, mafketis!

A very strange meme. Surely, a broader context could be helpful.

I found this, which judging from the 'tagi' would suggest I was right!

paczaizm.pl/myslisz-piesku-ze-to-dobre-miejsce-sznur-troche-w-prawo

Yes, the 'tagi' explains it all. They pick up some picture and then try to assign an absurd and most unexpected comment to it. The painting taken seems to be a 20th century piece, but I can't tell by which painter.

Here are two other silly memes which illustrate their modus operandi. The latter one is a comment to the news announced on the 'Wiadomości' news bulletin on TVP1 being the main propaganda tube of the present 'good change' Polish government.

I don't think the pictures are linked properly...

What about this one?



A mockery of the well-known saying that Casmir the Great, King of Poland between 1333 - 1370
ZASTAŁ POLSKĘ DREWNIANĄ, ZOSTAWIŁ MUROWANĄ

And another one:

There are lots of memes made of classical paintings at the sztuczne fiołki fanpage. Too many political ones recently.

@kaprys
Thanks, Kaprys! I took and look and will try to translate them through Google Translate and a beginner's Polish grammar/vocabulary when I can't figure it out. I understand the accounts get deleted if all you do here is ask for translation help, but I really want to stay here and learn more about the language/culture so that I can someday visit.

We all know "z tyłu liceum z przodu muzeum" (in English something like 'year 12 at the back, 12th century at the front', or for Americans 'senior high from the back, senior care from the front') however my ex once used a word to describe a lady who looks young from a distance but old when they're closer. I first heard it at a small party a few years ago with Renata Beger and Krystyna Prońko. It also fits Kora Jackowska and a fair few male celebrities.

I wish I could remember the word.

IN UK we have an expression 'mutton dressed as lamb' for ladies who want to look 20, but are well over 60....

Dzidzia-piernik.

I thought of pudernica but all of the ladies mentioned look very different even if they're more or less the same age. Not all of them look bad.

what's the difference between pudernica and lampucera?

sjp.pwn.pl/poradnia/haslo/lampucera;13835.html

True, since the camera often lies and their faces are of course prepared for camera by professionals. Up close and with unflattering lighting few of us look great.

The same person also used to use another misogynistic term - 'herod-baba', and another friend likes the word 'ciamciaramcia'.

Polish is a very expressive language.

Looks like someone truly enjoys feminist indoctrination in his bubble :-)


That's the one.

Here's another couple of words, that fit someone here: tuman and koczkodan. I know the meaning, but wonder what the derivation is.


So a misogynistic term is 'feminist indoctrination' for you. Interesting.

One need to be a "tuman" not to know that "Koczkodan" means guenon :-)


I have never heard anyone claiming that all women are "herod-baba" to make it misogynistic.

Rene Guenon of course excelled at being both :-)


Nor have I...

Not the author, just guenon, a monkey.

Tuman has an interesting origin. It literally means cloud of dust, smoke or fog. At first, I thought it derived from a non-Slavic language, like Turkish or Arabic, but it turns out it's pure Slavic and related to the word "ciemny", meaning it is something dark.

Koczkodan derives from a Romanian word meaning "someone weird", which, in turn, is probably derived from a Turkish root.

That's really interesting. Language often travels from one language family to another - as I remember there are a few words in polish with Turkic roots.


Thanks for sharing that insight with us.

Actually, quite a few. And you are right to use the word Turkic, and not Turkish, as many of those words come from non-Turkish Turkic languages. Many of the Turkish Turkish words are in turn borrowed from Persian and Arabic.

We just had a question about the origin of the Polish name Tambur here. It turns out that the name is based on a root borrowed from some Balkan language, from Turkish, from Persian, from Akkadian, and ultimately from Sumerian. English gets tambourine from the same ultimate source, from French, from Italian, from Turkish and so on. That's quite a journey, across several totally different language families.

That's information you can easily check in google but you're welcome


Indeed, "dywan" is the one that comes to my mind first.

Dywan is another interesting example. Yes, it comes from Turkish, but the dy- part traces back to Persian, to Akkadian, and ultimately to Sumerian. It is only one of two words in Polish that have Sumerian roots, the other being kanał, which like the English words cane, canyon, channel and canal, all ultimately derive from a Sumerian root meaning "hollow reed".

To depart for just a moment, Polish "sufit" must therefore also be related to the like-meaning Italian equivalent "soffito".

Both have Latin origin.