The BEST Guide to POLAND
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Posts by Yallah  

Joined: 9 Apr 2018 / Female ♀ 		Last Post: 13 Apr 2018
Threads: 1
Posts: 3 		From: U.S., Cooperstown NY
Speaks Polish?: Yes (circa 1939!)
Interests: Cooking (especially traditional Polish dishes), mushroom-hunting, flea markets, old movies

Displayed posts: 4
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Yallah   
9 Apr 2018
Language / Who actually says "Ale decha!" in Poland? [5]

Saw this expression used last night in a new tv program ('Killing Eve'), where it's a clue in a murder investigation and eventually translated as 'flat-chested'. The show is set in London and the adult MI5 translator doesn't understand the term, but eventually a local Polish teenager does. I get that 'decha' is the larger/more emphatic form of 'deska'/board, so 'flat as a board' makes sense, but am just wondering if this expression is really in use now? In any particular age group or region? (NB: I grew up speaking Polish, but my vocabulary dates from about 1953, when my Warsaw-born parents left London after their army service and emigrated to the U.S., so it's kind of a time capsule. 😏) Thanks!
Yallah   
13 Apr 2018
Language / IS "MURZYN" word RACIST? [686]

@Easy_Terran
'Pitchy' could be "pidgin English" (pronounced somewhere between 'pigeon' and 'pitch in'), used to describe a crude-but-understandable blend of English vocabulary and grammar mixed together with whatever the local language is, and vice-versa. When my mother visited Chicago about 50 years ago, she claims to have heard this comment on a local Polish radio station about unleashed pets causing traffic problems: "No, dogi latajow po streetcie i cary honkujow na nich!" (Please excuse my 'spelling'; I learned to read Polish as a small child but never really got the hang of writing it - hope you got the gist.) This could be described as either pidgin English or pidgin Polish, depending on what your 'home' language is.