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Posts by Lyzko  

Joined: 12 Jul 2013 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 8 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 47 / Live: 33 / Archived: 14
Posts: Total: 10238 / Live: 6120 / Archived: 4118 		From: New York, USA
Speaks Polish?: tak
Interests: podrozy, rozrywki, sport

Displayed posts: 6153 / page 15 of 206
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Lyzko   
23 May 2025
Language / Use of "Pan/Pani" in Poland vs Other Countries [30]

Not impolite, albeit familiar in any event! Most languages throughout the
world with which I'm familiar have a formal or distant vs. informal or intimate
form of address.

Modern Hebrew is a notable exception.
Lyzko   
23 May 2025
Off-Topic / What is a woman? [686]

@Rich, for once here please stop playing dumb, although I must admit you did it rather well:-)
It's a purely symbolic gesture, the hand kiss, and is still appreciated by well-bred Polish women.
Lyzko   
23 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Import goods will obviously be more expensive because of the surcharge imposed
by the higher cost of exporting. This is not even sheer common sense, it's a matter of
basic economics.
Lyzko   
23 May 2025
Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]

In Poland, a native, run-of-the-mill fellow Pole needn't know English, this is self evident.
However, an American, for example, armed only with a knowledge of English, will
be at a severe disadvantage with zero Polish skills, no argument there. I certainly would have.
Lyzko   
23 May 2025
Life / Is it worth returning to Poland in old age? [168]

The hand kiss is charming, Rich, and you know it.
Have been told by Poles that the difference between the traditional
Austrian "Kuess die Hand, gnae' Frau!" and the Polish (unspoken) "Caluje Pani raczki!",
is that the Poles mean it and it's not just going through the motions.
Lyzko   
23 May 2025
Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]

That's right! Statistically, one's much more likely to survive, much less comfortably, in Poland knowing
Polish than not.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Off-Topic / A "humorous" aside to US 47th President [31]

But of course you are emotionally sound.

Paul Krugman was right; Trump brought out the racists like yourself, to vote
against themselves, blinded by prejudice and lumping all failed liberal programs
into one pot.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Life / Is it worth returning to Poland in old age? [168]

No, not sole. However, thanks to both the Web and my contacts, I remain in touch with
Poland, if not only for my language as well for my acquaintanceships.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Off-Topic / A "humorous" aside to US 47th President [31]

I realized that she wouldn't win, yet, I also voted for Biden the first time as well,
thinking that he'd lose, maintaining hope of a victory of sanity.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

There was a volume which appeared during the mid-90's called "Die Vergangenheit die nicht vergehen will"
(The past that will not pass away), written by a German historian, if I recall the title correctly, and discusses the
Holocaust as a sort of black hole, into which all of post-War German history has been sucked.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Perhaps you're right. After all, you grew up there. I grew up hearing German all around me
from earliest childhood here in the States, but never set foot on German soil until I was a grad student in the summer
of '87. At the time, we were still in East vs. West Germany and the world was waaaay less globalized
than it is today.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

More an "Abwehrmechanismus" or "defense mechanism" than anything else, I'd say! When the Mitscherlichs
wrote "The Inability to Mourn" (Die Unfaehigkeit zu trauern) in 1967, Mitscherlich was dubbed the nastiest names in the
German press. Germans simply couldn't handle the truth.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Thanks, B.B.
In fact, I was aware of that tidbit of information as well. I only mentioned the FRG
since the West touted herself as having moved beyond the indelible shadows of the
Hitler Era, when to be completely truthful, this was far from the case.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Off-Topic / A "humorous" aside to US 47th President [31]

I did vote for Kamala, if only as one vote for sanity in the family.
Furthermore, in the US, there is a separation not only between
Church and State, hence making us a democracy vs. a theocracy,
but most importantly, between the third branch of our government,
the Judiciary, from the Executive.

No president has the unlimited power of a despot, even if Trump
does behave like a sandbox bully and attempts to dismiss anything
which doesn't suit his fancy!
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Life / Is it worth returning to Poland in old age? [168]

Well, although I haven't returned for a visit for many years, I'm still
in touch with acquaintances in Poland and in fact, save for the local
bank or business for example, "Pan"/"Pani", along with the hand kiss,
is rapidly going out of style, unfortunately.

Despite not having gone back, I do manage to stay up to date as much
as I can:-)
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Again, post-War West Germany was chocked full of former Nazis,
often in the same posts as they'd held right before the end of the War,
Camp doctors, for example one Herta Oberhaeuser of Ravensbrueck!

She was actually re-admitted to practice openly in the small North German
town of Bad Segesberg until the late '60's and I had the rare chance to
catch her final interview or so on German TV. When members of the
studio audience in Hamburg were asked their reactions to a former
Concentration Camp physician being allowed to resume her post, one
woman replied, "Oh, but I think those victims were only Jewish children, or?"

The more times change, the more they stay the same.
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Life / Problems adjusting in Poland [43]

Ron, speaking solely English in any foreign country is not a panacea!
Poland, much more so than either Sweden or Northern Germany, the Netherlands etc.
doesn't have a plethora of competent bilingual native English speakers. Therefore,
it's really imperative to know at least basic Polish in order to survive...even if you look
like Sean Connery LOL
Lyzko   
22 May 2025
Language / Use of "Pan/Pani" in Poland vs Other Countries [30]

Depends though, Maf!

Learning another language often means exploring stuff which native speakers might simply take for granted,
for example, how many native Anglophone know (or for that matter even care) that "Good bye!" derives from
"G-d be with you!"??

Same with Pan/pan and Pani/pani.
Lyzko   
21 May 2025
News / Will PiS be happy if AfD wins elections in Germany? [1442]

Tacitus is dead right, apropos a post of mine from several weeks prior. The Old Man
was indeed a most adamantly anti-Nazi Lord Mayor of Cologne during the critical years of
the 1930's.

It is ironic therefore that during his initial term in Office, he frequently selected
former top Nazis to fill key cabinet posts, among them, the infamous legal mind who
drafted the Nueremberg Laws, "Dr" Hans Globke. Theodor Oberlaender was also an
Adenauer appointee during the second phase of the Economic Miracle, if memory serves
me correctly. Oops, it might actually have been Erhard, my apologies!
Lyzko   
21 May 2025
Off-Topic / A "humorous" aside to US 47th President [31]

Trump reminds me more and more of the Groucho Marx character Otis P. Driftwood
in "A Night at the Opera" (1935), a rollicking, desperately needed comedy during the
height of the Great Depression.

Driftwood: This contract begins herewith "The party of the first part shall hereinafter be known as the party of the first part...."
Romanelli (played by brother Chico): No, no, I uh-no lik-uh that one.... (proceeds to tear up that part of the contract!)
Driftwood: Ahemm, "To wit, hereinafter, all parties therein shall....
Romanelli: Uh-uh, boss, I no lik-uh that one either....

And this hysterical routine keeps going on from there.

How similar to President Trump:

Drone aide: Ahemm, Mr. President, the Constitution most emphatically states..
Trump: Naaah, don't like that one, just get rid of it.....
Aide: But, uh, Mr. President, the Social Security Act, Citizens Panel, Civilians Board....
Trump: Fuhgettabout it, we don't need it.

etc... ad nauseum
Lyzko   
21 May 2025
Language / Use of "Pan/Pani" in Poland vs Other Countries [30]

"Pan"/"Pani" is merely a throwback to the earliest development of the Polish language.
What's confusing for foreigners learning Polish is simply that "Pan(i)" alone literally means
"Lord"/"Lady". It's really no more obsequious sounding than any number of European languages
such as French, German, Italian, Romanian among others, which employ a formal or distant
mode when addressing strangers, certainly authority figures.