Language / jedzie ? ci ludzie ? czym ? [11]

"Czym" = with what

Ex."Czym moge sluzyc?" = (lit.) With what may/can I serve? aka "May I take your order?" or "And what would like?"

Language / Terms of endearment in Polish [222]

Polish has numerous diminutives used in everyday speech!
It's one the of the things which makes it such an attractive language.

English doesn't really have that. For example, in Polish "Tadziu, chodz tu!" = Teddy, dear. Come over here.
We need to add an extra term of endearment, whereas in Polish, the diminutive form picks up the slack,
so to speak:-)

Law / Gun control in Poland: should Polish people be allowed to own guns? [1041]

One shootout only begets others, much like with violence itself.
We all at some time have been violent or hurtful in pursuit of
either self defense or defense of a loved one, perhaps too a stranger.
And yet in the end, it's nothing to be proud of... merely a sign that humans
are simply higher animals, though animals nonetheless.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Yes, that's right.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Exactly my point from before, Feniks! The West Country accent is probably the closest
in Great Britain to North American Standard, with the exception of New England such as Boston,
New York (especially Brooklynese) or deepest Deep South.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

At this point, Rich, I think I'd trust Pavlov's dog over you! LOL

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Spot on, jon!!

News / Northern Lights in Poland [49]

Aha, I see now. Thanks, johnny reb!

News / Northern Lights in Poland [49]

Whereabouts in Northern Michigan, just curious? Iron City or Thunder Bay, perhaps?

USA, Canada / What's up poles, anyone from Canada [29]

That might be as much the result of yurts as easily as that of smoldering forest fires.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

I think you answered my query, jon!
Sorry about the misspelling.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Nevertheless, you would admit that after Albert became Prince Consort and Victoria Queen of Great Britain along with her dominion,
that the flat "a" fell out of favor among the upper class and was replaced by what most foreigners consider an "English accent", that is,

RP.

Certain actors such as Dirk Boegard, Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ralph Richardson or Allen Corduner, reflect an erstwhile diction
peculiar to the English stage.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Oh, I know. My point was also that it's Southwestern England.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

As you well know then, jon, the so-called "posh, upper class"
English accent, e.g. of the late Queen Elizabeth, with its broad 'a's'
and dropped final or monosyllable 'r's", isn't really English at all, but
German!

As Britons by the score tried desperately to mimic the speech of
Consort Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, they often turned the
traditional flat "a-sound" into a broader sound as the good Prince
typically was said to pronounce "half" like "hAHHf" etc.

You want to hear a true English accent, best go to Devon or better
still Dartmoor. There the 'a's' couldn't be flatter or more "American" LOL

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

True, jon. All I meant is that is the UK traditionally, breeding was once measured almost exclusively
through peerage, cultivated upper class manners which took into account one's grammar, vocabulary,
and pronunciation! One had to measure up or one was not accepted.

Here in the US, nearly anything goes, so it seems.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]

@Rich, as I've posted already, Jews made the tactical error of trying to assimilate too fast, way too uncritically!
Except if the Jew in question is either a made member of one of the Brooklyn sects, possibly a Holocaust survivor
or a mega rich monkey businessman, American Jews could learn some lessons from other ethnic minorities in the
States, such as African-Americans and Italian-Americans.

George Floyd was scarcely a model citizen, not mention hardly rich, yet his own people would rally around him in a way which would
have been impossible had he been Jewish.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Here in the US, the only "class distinctions" these days typically regard
money and only money! Breeding, comportment in the British sense, long
dead.

People such as Trump, Bezos, Zuckerberg don't have the cultural distinction
of a Morgan or a Mellon, except perhaps Bill Gates.

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]

@Ironside, if you were in the Jews' position during the War and saw your gentile neighbors
as the enemy, how would you have reacted?

Polish Christians weren't saints, neither were Polish Jews.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Good point, jon. Literary models can sometimes be a bit dodgy, I suppose.
On the other hand, literature, as with popular culture anywhere, often does reflect
an interpretation of reality, however unreliable at times:-)

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

Agreed.
Then again, there is a tendency nowadays for "gaslighting" aka
making the other person think they're a little off, even stupid, merely
so that the gaslighter can laugh at that person!

For instance, if a somebody makes a remark about someone's brogue, to which that person
responds that there's no such thing as a brogue, what does that mean, and so forth,
merely to gently tease the first person, this is undoubtedly what jon's doing here.

He's an intelligent, articulate, interesting poster, therefore, well aware of the concept of
class system, but simply feels like kidding, that's all.

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

It all depends on where or when one's grown up. I take it you're fairly young
or perhaps grew up outside England, maybe in Scotland, during the '60's.

Law / Gun control in Poland: should Polish people be allowed to own guns? [1041]

Ahemm, gun makers pay millions in taxes each year, what are you talking about?

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

@jon, I've described what is known historically as the "Class System".
One has but to read standard English literature from "Tom Brown's Schooldays"
by Dr. Matthew Arnold up through the mid-20th century to understand the term.

Trust you're being funny.

Off-Topic / Should people be free to cut their hair and dye it as they want? [16]

While I'm not a member of the Morality Police Force here, I feel anyone is
"free" to dress as they feel. Whether this reflects an aesthetic standard or
merely some infantile, repressed personal rebellion or not, remains a separate
question:-)

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Rich, as I've always maintained, such remains YOUR particular issue with your Polish
mother tongue, not mine!

UK, Ireland / "Strange " English language.. [264]

@Milo, if you deny the conventional British class system, then I do suggest
you review your history! Moreover, I never denied that the US and the UK have
tried to understand each other. Need I repeat the famous quote of Shaw, that
Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language?

Genealogy / Jewish Roots of Poland [638]

Nice riposte there, Alien.

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Actually, I find German academic writing for example, sometimes with those extended adjective constructions,
much more difficult than any Polish sentences I've encountered!

Polish is challenging to foreigners for her counting quirks, perfective/imperfective verbs and
morphological permutations, German for her often dizzying sentence length, myriad plural varieties, above all,
random grammatical gender assignment. Thank heavens I learned the latter as a kid. It made learning Polish
some thirty years hence far easier.

History / German Sprache aka speech in Polish films [19]

In the Resistance Era film "Zakazane piosenki", the German
officers are naturally all played by Polish actors with thick Polish
accents! In one scene, a high-ranking Nazi whose plans to attack
Warsaw have been scuttled, exclaims, "Donnerwetter, verflixt nochmal!"
with such a heavy Polish pronunciation, the subtitles actually have to
appear phonetically below on the screen in order that viewers can understand
what is being saidLOL

Language / Extremely Hard - Polish the hardest language to learn [226]

Thank you, jon. At last somebody's steering the discussion back to the original conversation thread!