Life / Prejudice about Poles; Poland has changed [39]

Yo, in the latter case, take away a man's ability to earn an honest farthing by prohibiting him from joining professional associations such as the medaeval guilds etc. and he has little choice but to survive any way he can, be it through usury or what have you. It's not that the Jews grew lazy, it's that they were thwarted at every bend and turn, forcing them to accept work in the least popular positions, long off limits to gentiles, such as money lending and rent collection.

Life / Prejudice about Poles; Poland has changed [39]

There's a difference though, Dirk, between a rank prejudice vs. a historical generalization!

In New York, for example, it is true that many bldg. supers are Polish. That's a general fact. Were I then to add, "and boy are they heavy drinkers and anti-Semites...". that's a prejudice as well as a clearly negative stereotype hands down.

Fact is, for generations, Jews in Europe, roughly from around the Middle Ages until at least the closing phases of the Enlightenment period, were pawnbrokers and bookmakers. This is a fact, pretty or not, which can be proven. However, to further insist on the assertion that not only were they such, but were mostly cheats, liars, and embezzlers, for instance, jumps from mere generalization to out-and-out fallacy.

Life / Prejudice about Poles; Poland has changed [39]

Indeed, Polish stereotypes do abound, nearly all of them pure rubbish! Don't feel singled out however.
In Germany for centuries, the so-called "East Frisian" peoples were teased mercilessly by other Germans, including their very own:-)

Person A: Hey, how come those two Frisian men over there have their cheeks bandaged up?

Person B: Oh, didn't you hear? They tried to eat with a knife and fork.
LOL

Life / Why Do You Love Poland? [907]

A quote from Gen'l. Patton as portrayed by George C. Scott:

"Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country. The only way to win a war is by making the OTHER son of a ***** die for HIS country!!"

Genealogy / Mongolian the Golden Horde - do Poles have Mongolian ancestry? [256]

Again, Putin's face is clearly smooth and oval shaped, whereas Duda's is much beefier, squarer.

Life / Why Do You Love Poland? [907]

Apropos overuse of certain words, in Woody Allen's "Manhattan", an ex-girl friend keeps saying so-and-so's a genius, her boss is a genius, her former husband was a genius etc., whereupon Allen quips at one point, "Gee, ya know a lotta geniuses don'tcha! Maybe you should meet some stupid people every once and a while so ya know what it's like to talk with a real person."

I cannot say that I "love" any one country. I love people, but even though for instance, I could imagine myself living in Germany if anywhere outside the US, I would never declare that I love Germany. It's going to sound ridiculous.

Genealogy / Mongolian the Golden Horde - do Poles have Mongolian ancestry? [256]

Russians though tend on the whole to look for "Eurasian" than even the Poles. The latter have that dash of the Oriental, as I mentioned previously, but mostly, a heavy admixture of Germanic.

Compare for instance the faces of Putin and Duda! The contrast speaks for itself:-)

Life / Why Do You Love Poland? [907]

Do you speak either Polish or Italian even at the minimum level? Only wondering because it's amazing what knowing the language can do for one's experience.

On the other hand, I can only say that I'm sure it wouldn't be any easier for a Pole or an Italian in the US without requisite knowledge of English:-)

News / Britain - problem for Poland and Poles? [117]

Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Rich, but cynicism's nothing to be proud of, believe me!
Skepticism's another thing.

News / Britain - problem for Poland and Poles? [117]

Sort of reminds me, your last post, of the reason it seems that Poland in particular is wooing Jewish visitors (back!) to Poland. It's not really because they want to welcome former countrymen to return to the homeland, it's rather that Poland's hurtin' economically and a few extra sheckels or dollars sure ain't gonna hurt to help boost things a little.

Hate to sound cynical, but I suspect that's the actual reason.

News / Poland has accepted over a million Ukrainian refugees. Why does the EU keep telling propaganda about Poland? [304]

Hmmm, sounds a lot like what's become of American English. Grunts, "Like, uhhh", add to that, liberal curse words thrown in for good measure....just to "toughen the message"!

Yessir, think I'm gonna feel right at home in today's PolandLOL

Please back to the topic

News / Poland has accepted over a million Ukrainian refugees. Why does the EU keep telling propaganda about Poland? [304]

It was in the end Communist Russian soldiers who murdered 25,000 or so unarmed Poles in 1941!

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]

@Ironside, you apparently didn't understand Tacitus either. Not surprising actually when two admittedly fluent non-native English speakers chat together, even then, something's bound to get "lost in translation":-)

Tacitus is saying something totally different. He's not "anti-freedom, he's pro-responsibility!!

Law / Weapons laws in Poland. Carrying a concealed handgun? [918]

Guns are Middle America's security blanket, plain and simple!

As little Linus, the "Peanuts" character, needs his blanket to suck his thumb by, so to it seems, a majority of US-citizens apart from perhaps East Coast urbanites in places such as D.C., New York, Phili or Boston, desperately cling to their twelve gauge of even sawed-off variety as a way of establishing and asserting their manhood.

I too learned to fire a rifle, and yes, a pistol too, while in summer camp. My folks, particularly my mother, were horrified. I just thought it was fun, without ever assuming I'd seriously have need of one, save for the most dire of life-and-death emergencies sometime in adulthood. Like most of my contemporaries, I merely figured that the only ones who swore by those dangerous suckers were gun-nuts, hayseeds, and yahoos out there along the Beltway.

Those who proudly tote their weapons as a badge of pride, virility etc. aren't in fact real "men", but rather "man children" who most probably, in addition to showing off their shooting, also engage in wife abuse, bullying along with encouraging some of the worst excesses of violence we know.

Where exactly did we go wrong? Is the state of Texas unwilling as well as incapable of moving into the new Millenium??

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Orban Viktor now wants to spread his anti-migrant message advocated by FIDESZ across the whole of Europe.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Free speech, once again, is a sticky wicket, as the Brits would have said. Is one necessarily free to trample on the hearts and minds of others by hurting indiscriminantly with hate or bigotry? On the other hand, Germany for instance, has become terribly concerned for at least the past ten years or more, that the Merkel gov't. as but the latest example, is creating a sort of "left-wing" dictatorship in which even mention of the Nazi era (certainly in a provocative vein aka Jonathan Meese or Thilo Sarrazin and others, I'm sure) becomes a seriously punishable offense.

Although I do support a degree of political correctness, I too yearn for the time when a merely flip, witty off-the-cuff gibe didn't have to be a cause celebre and unleash WWIII! Germany, Poland, Sweden among certain nations, remain so thin skinned vis-a-vis "pc behavior", one wonders whether or not they actually feel comfortble with, much less understand the meaning of "free speech".

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

In comparison with Germany, Poland, Turkey (though less perhaps in the modern era than the UK or France), I've got to go along with Rich, that the US indeed has free speech to the extent that one is totally free to make an ever lovin' ass of themselves and not risk gov't. reprisals.

On the other hand, in no country is "free" speech entirely free, meaning, that yelling FIRE! in a crowded theatre, overtly threatening someone's life before witnesses of sound mind, and so forth, won't be tolerated.

In Turkey, poking fun at Ataturk might well carry a stiff punishment of some sort. In Germany, joking openly about the Nazi Era ain't a good idea either, and of course as of February of 2018, slurring Poland's alleged involvement in the Holocaust is punishable as well. In the US, I can proclaim that the president is a jerk etc. and nothing will happen by contrast. Threaten the life of any public figure anywhere in the world, and there certainly will be reprisals.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Off topic, but kaprys has just hit the nail on the head in showing the difference between Israel and, say, Turkey, in this regard. Israel, for better or for worse, remains a secular state, whereas Erdogan resolutely maintains that Turkey is a theocracy, and proud.

By the way, before Ataturk, Turkey had had a long tradition of Jewish assimilation, many of whom lived side by side with their Muslim neighbors without incident!

:-)

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Exactly. In Israel when I was there, some eateries actually serve porkLOL

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Johnny, again you missed the point!

Being a Jews is much more than keeping kosher as being a Christian is sooooo much more than regular church attendance, then going out and committing sins.

As my late mother said, it's more important what comes out of your mouth than what you put into it.

Work / What Jobs are there in Poland for an Englishman besides teaching english? [70]

Amen, delph!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

I would translate the first part as "Committee To Preserve Poland's Good Name", something along those lines.

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Johnny, as one needn't call oneself a Christian and go to church regularly, so too I am a Jew in my heart, even if I don't keep kosher and/or go to temple every shabbesL0(

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

Ironside, I've my own reasons for being Jewish. The most important is to procreate our children to compensate for the millions of our people so tragically, inexplicably, taken from us.

Work / What Jobs are there in Poland for an Englishman besides teaching english? [70]

@Ziemowit,

The kicker is though that most Dutch, even "bilingual" Poles I've encountered, don't see it that way on the whole; many feel their English is already good enough, especially for bare minimum practical contact purposes with foreigners, themselves not necessarily native Anglophones:-)

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

As throughout history, neither side is blameless here.

Work / What Jobs are there in Poland for an Englishman besides teaching english? [70]

Alex,

A colleague of mine went to Amsterdam to teach English at any one of their small to middle-sized language centers and introduced himself in Dutch which he thought to learn for his sojourn in the Netherlands! He'd hoped it might somehow break the ice.

As one might expect, contrary to Poland, he was greeted with howls of laughter from his charges (college age some of them) and his valiant attempts to communicate in their mother tongue were belittled no end:-)

Being a retiring sort of chap, he was cowed into submission and from then on, taught the course and was resigned to speaking nothing but English, so help him HeinekenLOL

Moral of the story, I guess, is that since English has become so "internationally" recognized as stop-gap lingo numero uno on this planet, most Europeans couldn't really seem to care less how good one's target language skills are, so long as everybody can communicate, so to speak, in English.

Not saying this is good, because I'm not sure it 'tis, I'm only relating my experience and that of my felllow academics abroad.

Asia, might be another story.

Work / What Jobs are there in Poland for an Englishman besides teaching english? [70]

"Prosze" is certainly a start, but I feel that the best (perhaps not the only) way to win the confidence of Polish ESLers is to address them in their beautiful native tongue.

Heaven knows, they've been so maligned lately, they do need a pick-me-up.

What better way then than a simple, sincere "Dzien dobry a witam! Mam __________na imie i zycze Wam........". The pupils probably are somewhat jaded already and expect an English teacher to know and speak only English. What a pleasant surpise when they discover that their teacher has taken the time to learn their language!!

News / Israel opposing potential new Polish law to criminalise term 'Polish death camps' [1539]

The Jews are damned if they do and damned it they don't!

They try to defend themselves, they're dubbed racists, they turn the other cheek aka ceding land to the Arabs on the West Bank like the late Yitzak Rabin, their fellow

Israelis castigate them in public, excoriate them by calling them "peaceniks" and then turn their backs on them.

Geez, what a tribe. I'm only Jewish for the solidarity of the Shoah, other than that, I wouldn't wish what we've morphed into on a dog:-)

Work / What Jobs are there in Poland for an Englishman besides teaching english? [70]

Unlike throughout much of Europe, such as Germany, France, Spain, even Italy, "prosze" alone will scarcely get you much in Poland, other than a polite smile at your efforts! Best to enroll in a serious crash course BEFORE going over so that you're prepared, rather than frustrated upon arrival:-)

Powodzenia,