Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]


Those are different things.... a couch potato is someone who watches tv too much (they might even be a hard worker on the job but at home they just flop down on the couch with the remote in hand....)

lazybones sounds very dated.... like the 1940s or so... I can't remember the last time I've heard it used

but off the top of my head for Polish obibok and nierób leniuch come to mind... but these are all masculine leniuszka is possible for a woman but the others?

lazy women aren't really a stereotype in Poland the way lazy men are...

Life / New born baby traditions in Poland [26]

Naming day sounds like a ceremony where a baby is formally given a name.... "Name day" is the expression I've always used in English for imieniny..

Life / New born baby traditions in Poland [26]


But their relative popularity has drastically changed. I remember when imieniny were by far more important and birthdays were a kind of secondary afterthought... now it's more or less reversed with birthday customs rapidly homogenizing the the general western way and imieniny becoming a kind of secondary afterthought.

A lot of it is marketing of course and if Polish people are happy with that then... so be it, it just makes the country a little less distinctive (which is exactly what many Poles want).

News / Poland's new golden age : shifting from Europe's periphery to its center [29]


But most of them are crap.... great marketing and singing in English shouldn't take the place of talent... music in English by non-native speakers is almost always phony and superficial....

Polish musical tastes are too eccentric to break through internationally though it's good to remember a Polish movie was nominated for the best picture oscar last year (or two years ago?)

And a Polish writer won the nobel prize last year... so Poland's not doing terribly in terms of making its culture known


austerity has left them with nothing else.... thank the euro for that (and hope your country never adopts that tool of economic doom).


What do you mean by that?

Genealogy / Polish Orphan Refugee sent to New Zealand [7]


You probably already know this, but just in case, the Polish letters will also be useful in searching records...

He name was probably Mieczysława Bąk.... (Bak is not a common last name, Bąk, pronounced "bohnk" is far more common... )

Jozef is Józef in Polish and Czopor and Czopór are both names...

Your best bet is probably trying to find Polish organizations that might have records in the Popławy or Lviv area... most Polish people from around that area would have been resettled in what is now western Poland (so finding them would not be easy at all) but there still are some Poles around there...

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


I had massive good will toward the EU until sometime after 2008 (when it went all in for socially destructive neoliberal policy). I would like to see it do something beyond creating new bureaucracies and get back to trying to make the lives of everyday Europeans better - it hasn't been interested in that for a long time now...

How is the German precariat doing?

investigate-europe.eu/publications/europes-precariat/

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


Greece is not at all without blame, but it's more of a 50-50 situation than the 100% Greece's fault narrative that Euro apologists keep pushing.... the architects of the euro should be in jail for their hubris....


loans are not transfers.... loans have to be paid back with interest, transfers don't... the loans were a pyramid scheme that blew up at the first sign of stress....


...und stolz darauf!

My ancestry is actually majority German (with some other stuff as is typical in the US). I'm actually very positive about lots of aspects of Germany, but I'm not blind to the faults (including its over-identification with the ever-more-dysfunctional EU....

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]

I'm not Polish, I'm a long term American resident in Poland.

I'm not angry "at Germany" but at the German and EU governments for creating the insane Euro project in the first place and then scapegoating Greece for the terrible decisions of private German bankers (who deserved to lose a bunch of money instead of being saved).


In other words pump up another debt bubble....

Germany is a manufacturing/export economy and Greece is a consumption/service economy - what works for one won't work for the other, ever.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]

No one with a functioning brain ever believed the deficit reporting..... but deficits aren't the enemy until governments start prioritizing the interests of private financiers over the citizenry as a whole...

Germany and Greece traditionally have very different approaches to how national economies work - the blithering idiots that created the euro either never understood that, though that Greece would be able to turn into a manufacturing powerhouse or wanted to turn southern europe into perpetual debt farms... because those are the only possible results of Germany and Greece trying to share a currency without massive transfers (which Germany forbade from the beginning).

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


Then why was was the EC giving such positive reports on Greece's infrastructure spending in the 00s? That's right! Because neoliberals hate infrastructure spending (like Germany, one of the premier economies in the world and can't build a frickin' airport?!??!)

Massive rewriting of history went down when the EU (largely at German urging) changed directions and went all in for siding with private investors over citizens in 2008....


Well it's a good thing the EU is now protecting its external borders and has worked out the kinks of Dublin so that when the next flow comes (probably starting in a few weeks) they'll be ready.... oh...... never mind.....

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


Not Germany's (or Europe's ) circus, not Germany's or Europe's monkeys....


Exactly!

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


Germany caused the crisis it didn't solve jack sh1t.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


By bankers....


I can have and express an opinion on the matter, especially since I live next door....

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


How are you fit to judge whether Trump is fit to govern or not?

Times arrow doesn't stop and it's very hard to think of a head of state/government that was effective in any kind of beneficial manner after 12 years in office..... She represents (and seems to care for) private financial elites and/or a bunch of migrant randos than German citizens many of which are no longer benefiting from her outdated neoliberal agenda...

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


the 'no true scotsman' argument = invalid

she saw over the single biggest policy bungle since WWII and helped eviscerate the Greek economy - she's no longer fit for purpose

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


something she's done to herself.... as I always say the maximum time a head of state/government can be in power before becoming irrevocably alienated from the public is 10 years (give or take two depending on other factors). she's well past her sell-by date and germany needs new leadership.

News / Goodbye Sunday Shopping in Poland - Hello Electoral Reform [246]


PiS really do think that Polish people are stupid and the way to win elections is to lie to them (refer back to Kurski's "ciemny naród"

News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]


That's not what it means in English... use it in Polish if it makes you feel better but it does not mean that in English.... or the name of this journal would make no sense...

tandfonline.com/toc/cpce20/currentout

Find some other expression in English for your slavish repititions of Jarek's party line - post-communist / post-communism already has a different meaning.

News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]


Why are you so against post-communism (by definition something after communism)?

The Polish usage is farked because of imprecise terminology (by JK?), no need to let his fumble tongue confuse English usage.

Communism = bad

Post-communism, ie. what comes after communism, not necessarily bad.

Food / Smalec in a Jar - how to make it better? [19]

Skwarki are bits of fried skin (rind).

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


No. If it was so successful then why were slave states in such heavy debt to free states?

An economic institution that only benefits a tiny percentage of the population (like slavery) is not a success by any rational measure.

The 1 % now benefits from economic distortions that devastate most of the population... doesn't make it an economic success story...

Not least because slavery degrades the value of work for free folk and everybody ends up looking for a free ride (much like the modern 'globalized' economy).

Travel / Roadside thing in Poland ~ what is this, please? [25]


Since when do women kiss ladies' hands?

I guess they wear dresses, so priests are honorary ladies?

Travel / Roadside thing in Poland ~ what is this, please? [25]

like .... LADIES?????

Food / Do Polish people really love cabbage ?? [78]


It's a part of the cuisine but not first tier.... (pickles are first tier, cabbage is in the second tier at most).

Genealogy / Why are some Polish people dark complected, and others very light [511]


If not then maybe a tramp or a thief? (with apologies to Cher....)

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


As awful as that was (which is extremely....) treatment of slaves in the US was far better than in the Caribbean or Latin America where they were routinely worked to death and replaced by new slaves.

Only something like 6 per cent of the Atlantic Slave Trade was to areas now in the US and that's partly because of generally better treatment (as valuable property which is a hideous idea but....).

The status of freed slaves wasn't much better than before the war for lots of reasons (including the economic devastation of the entire US South and the disastrous reconstruction policies).

Nonetheless, by the turn of the 19th and 20th century there was a small black middle class in every southern city. In terms of social evolution 40 years from slavery to a middle class is light speed.... and by the 1920's you had the Harlem Renaissance and a full scale intellectual movement.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


Apart from moral considerations, slavery was only economically beneficial to a very small group of people, not the society as a whole which mostly remained poor and well behind the north in educational and economic matters.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


The rate of slavery was steadily decreasing in the 18th century because the traditional crops sugar, rice, tobacco either weren't grown in the plantation conditions found in the caribbean and latin america. Then the invention of the cotton gin made slavery briefly economically viable for cotton... but it was still an economic house of cards and southern states were up to their eyeballs and beyond in debt to northern banks.

Only a tiny percentage of the white population owned slaves and cotton didn't generate enough money to keep the whole show going.
The moral degradation of slavery was one reason for the civil war and southern debt was another.

News / Why is Poland so hostile against Germany? Do they realize how their reparations rubbish damages relations? [510]


His 'nationalist' is a type of fundamentalist, and fundamentalists always turn against their own...

News / Presidential elections 2020 - your opinions about campaign, candidates [2222]

IME it's pretty well distributed across the political spectrum.... in Poland at this minute it's most strongly correlated with PiS but in the US at present it's a bit stronger on the left...