Language / POLISH 18 - 30 years old know MUCH BETTER ENGLISH language than their own native language! [102]


I am interested in your definition of 'better English'. Whatever a native speaker says is correct in the sense that it is a natural expression of the mother tongue. However good the 'grammar' of a non-native speaker, and however perfect their turns of phrase, there will always be the odd moment of unnatural language which will give them away as non-native speakers. So, in this sense, they can never be 'better' than a native speaker.

It depends what you are judging it on.

Personally I think a language is by definition fluid, and its life lies in the hands of its users ... I delight in variation and, even in some cases, in what some might call bastardisation of a language, because this is the language being manipulated and fully 'used' by its speakers.

What grates on my ear is the artificiality of non-native usage, but of course I also sound artificial, and my language acquired, in my non-native languages. So I give, as well as taking.

Love / Do you think these renowned Poles are hot? [150]

Ok, I have an almost-embarrassing predilection for Polish men, but somehow here people have managed to find the few that I don't find particularly attractive ... the rest of the nation is hot, though ; )

Real Estate / Home builders in Poland? [16]

Stig, you don't need to speak Polish - I am the voice for a great team of Polish builders. Just say the word if you want us to help.

Love / Do you think these renowned Poles are hot? [150]

erm, not quite my taste. He is intense, but looks like his elbows might be a bit spikey.

I prefer the slightly more elastic type, with some evidence of musculature. I don't mind a small paunch, as it is comfortable for resting the head. I like a man of some physical substance - not just intellectual/energy.

(And of course this thread has absolutely nothing to do with my subjective preferences, but still : )

Show us some more pictures and I will be more than happy to contribute my thruppence worth.

Life / The "I am never wrong" phenom - is it the Polish thing? [63]


Actually you are quite right - Greeks also never say sorry, and rarely tell the truth, apart from when discussing their emotions. As for Indians, their every word is carefully considered and calibrated to achieve what they want - they don't even begin with the truth and diverge from it, and their 'sorries' are certainly rare, and suspect.

Just generalising there, of course.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


I agree, and I think that is what people are most concerned about here. Poland is a Catholic country, ostensibly has a morality largely dictated by the Church, and this morality has been and will be translated into legislation. If you want to change that, change the religion of the country (good luck ; ).


Yes. That is the other issue. Someone else's life as well as the mother's is at risk here.

That the RCC comes down on the side of protecting that life doesn't seem a bad attitude of theirs, I have to say.
There should, of course, be a massive campaign of support for pregnant mothers in difficult situations, and also of trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.


Absolutely agree, and this is the BIG POINT:

ABORTION = INCOME FOR SOMEONE.
In a 'liberal' world, abortion is 'good', and that also means that in the capitalist world that often comes with liberalism, someone sees a business opportunity.

So, what do you want?

1. A religious country where the unborn child is protected, and mothers have to do as they're told, even though that means some hardship for the mother in some cases, although it usually turns out ok because nobody ever regrets having a child in the end,

OR

2. A capitalist, liberal country where there is total freedom to do what you like with the unborn child, with the added benefit of creating a great business opportunity for someone who can use the liberal banner to say that the 'service' they offer is a vital human right of the innocent female?

What you actually have is a religious country shot through with capitalism and liberalism. Tricky.

Polonia / Is it possible to meet a Polish female in Dubai? I'm looking for fun. [45]


They are generally slim and scrub up well, and they are good at washing up and ironing?

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


But if fertilisation has occurred, that is when the unique fusion of elements have come together - that is the point of creation of life. Sperm swimming hopefully along on their own do not constitute a life. An egg waiting and hoping is nothing until it gets the vital ingredient of the other half. Ask all the people trying to conceive about that ...

I know I keep saying this, but 6-7 days after conception, or even earlier, if one is listening, one is aware one is pregnant - one is aware that 'something' has happened. However minuscule that life, it is there, in all its uniqueness.

Think of it like this. I get a pen. I have a blank piece of paper. My pen is hovering over the paper, but the paper is still blank. Then I draw a tiny dot. That dot is there, whatever anyone says. I can make it bigger, or I can try to rub it out - but it is still an event and an existence.

Personally I think discussion about 'the point at which abortion is ok' is silly - it isn't ok at any point, because the ease of doing it, and the smallness/earliness of stage of development shouldn't come into it - actually quite the opposite - we should be more protective of life in its very early stages.

And it gets back to the same old thing ... justifying getting rid of an inconvenient life by getting rid of it quick when it is tiny and you can pretend it barely exists anyhow.

I can't see how that is morally defensible, and never will. And that is not a taught religious opinion - that is gut instinct.

Love / Are there any swingers club in Poland? [52]


and every guy is circumcised? ; )

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Yes ... fertilisation occurs usually in the fallopian tube ... the fertilised egg moves down into the main body of the uterus, and implants ... the morning after pill makes the uterine lining unreceptive, so the fertilised egg can't implant, so dies ...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

The thing about the morning after pill is that you have no way of knowing whether fertilisation has occurred. With abortion, you know it has occurred. That is a big difference.

However, yes, I agree, the morning after pill could constitute termination of a life.

I'm uncomfortable about the morning after pill, precisely because you don't know whether you are terminating a life or not. I don't like it and personally wouldn't want to take it. However, it doesn't feel as clearly wrong as an abortion, because you don't know if you're pregnant or not. Which in itself is completely unsatisfactory.

The point about abortion is that it is the knowing decision to terminate a life. The morning after pill is more of an 'erm - ok - just in case I'd better make sure that if I have created a life, it can't develop into a stable pregnancy'. But that is still not OK.

It is all horrible, and should all be avoided. That is what I will tell my daughter.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Sperm are not a whole life. They are just a catalyst, and provide half the person. So, before they have met the egg they are just an ingredient, in the same way that the egg is.

When they come together and fertilisation occurs, at that moment they cease to be separate ingredients and become a real living whole being who is at the very start of their human existence as a unique entity.

I just don't understand what is so hard to get about that, and how anybody could argue otherwise. Call me stupid.

(and thank you, p3, by the way, for not thinking what I said rubbish : )

UK, Ireland / English/British rudeness - what do Polish people think about it? [161]


I'm sure you do ; )

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

yeah, but there is a difference between, e.g., a baby dying because it catches a disease, or someone cutting up a perfectly healthy baby with scissors because they can't be doing with him/her at the moment, because, e.g., they haven't yet bought a flat in London and they're still only renting (the reason one work-mate of mine gave for needing an abortion) ... isn't there? Because that is the reality of what we are talking about here.

Forget all this nonsense about prostitutes and drug addicts having abortions because they love their unborn children so much they wouldn't want to bring them into this terrible world. Fxxk that. The abortions those of us who abhor them abhor are those, I think, where women are emotionally and economically stable, and just happen to fall pregnant through, e.g., drinking one glass too many of Chardonnay at the Cafe Rouge on the way home from work, falling into bed with a colleague, and oops, preggo. Or even worse - also in a stable relationship, but although they've been together for three years, she hasn't quite found the GP job she was looking for yet (waiting a few months for a placement in a better area), and he still has the last year of his law conversion course to do, so it doesn't really suit them yet ... next year would probably be better. And anyhow, their flat only has two bedrooms and a box room, and they use the box room as an office and need a spare bedroom for friends to stay, so where would the baby sleep?

It is this kind of decision (and the equivalent in Poland) that seems so deeply flawed and unacceptable.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

That's good : ) Thanks for saying so - otherwise it would just be my 'experience' and not a proven 'fact' ; ) ... but if it happened to you, too ... : )

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Well, I feel I was forced into it, by the 'convenience / choice / woman's rights over her body / career before motherhood' etc. beliefs of our country, so yes, I do feel astoundingly angry and wronged. But I have learnt to just pocket that somewhere deep inside me now, because it isn't possible to live properly and dwell on something like that.


No, I don't think we are ... I think I was just saying what I thought, as were others, but as you say, it is such a nebulous area that we can't possibly draw any conclusions other than that maybe we don't know everything.


I couldn't go so far as to say that, but I do know that in my opinion, I knew as soon as conception occurred ... it was an extraordinary feeling, and conviction. And I had a vision of her having jumped into her physical self - a bit like jumping on a ski lift. She had made the leap, landed sure-footedly and was now getting on with it.

Of course others will now laugh, mock, say that is all fantastical rubbish ... but I don't care at all, because I have no doubt about what I felt. If you are walking along and bump into a lamp post, you don't doubt that. I feel as certain about this.

But I know I have to stop giving my 'personal' experiences, because they are also dismissed - so I guess let's go to that whole huge body of work & discussion called Catholicisim, or Christianity, or Buddhism, or Islam, or whichever religion you choose ... they all talk about the soul, as far as I know. Hindusim. Reincarnation. It's all there. I am no expert at all, but my experience would suggest to me there is something in it.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


yes it does, and I think the soul exists before coming into the body. So I had a sense of my daughter's presence before she was even conceived. Sounds crazy and you will all just say I am stupid, etc, but I felt it, in the same way that you can feel people after they have died. But it was weird, as it was before she was conceived. She was conceived about a month after that. So you can see why I think abortion is off-limits ...

Life / Why is circumcision not practiced in Poland? [701]


Have to say that sounds quite viable as an argument ...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


What are you talking about?!! I barely understand this ... they would have to be fertilised eggs, wouldn't they? And sorry to say it, but yes, I would value the life of my child over that of a baby chicken, I would.

Anyhow, that would also mean that anyone who eats born chickens is also a hypocrite, because that is also killing something. But this is a bad parallel, and it trivialises the real matter.

UK, Ireland / English/British rudeness - what do Polish people think about it? [161]


What are you talking about?
The common use of thee/thou/thine/etc. went out centuries ago! Yes, there are some vestiges of it in some Northern dialects (I'll si' thi' later) - but this is dialect.

I really don't think one can say that there is a familiar or singular form of 'thee/thou' in Modern English - that is just misleading. If so we would teach 'I - thee/thou - he/she/it' ... come on : )


Hmm ... sorry, but going through your description, I can't see the rudeness. Now you know what that means? It means that in the cultural code in which those people have been brought up, they weren't being rude - so they weren't being rude. In the same way that if a Polish person is very direct with me, I can't take it as rudeness, because that is not their intention, so you shouldn't read the behaviour of these Brits as rude.

Example 1:
The old lady wasn't being patronising. If it was cold, and there were only three seats, and you were sitting in the middle, and are a man, and they are old ladies ... well, even as a younger woman I would straight away jump up and move over so they could sit down. To my mind, that you had to think about it was a tad ... rude. They were old, and cold too. Even if they hadn't been ... but usually the older female is offered respect and help.

When you did finally move, she was grateful, and thanked you - and in our language, she wasn't being effusive - that is just how we talk.

Actually she was rather polite, because she didn't ASK you to move - she just waited to see if you would. And that is another thing - we have an unspoken code of behaviour. The done thing would be to move. If you hadn't have moved, she wouldn't have asked - because it is your moral responsibility, your conscience, and she is well-brought up enough not to ask.

Example 2:

Again, two girls together on a train. You have your bag under a fold up seat, so effectively parked in that space. It is totally normal and not in any way rude for someone to say 'sorry - would you mind moving your bag?' - she was saying this because she didn't want to barge in, pull down the seat and possibly trample on your bag - and she also probably waited because she was checking that you really had just put the bag there, and not that you were in some way using the seat.

I just can't see the rudeness in either of these situations ...

And as for the language, what you might see as exaggerated politeness, etc, is just the way we speak. If you don't adopt that, you will always seem slightly rude/foreign ...

Genuine rudeness to me is, for example:

I have been standing in a queue at the post office in Poland for c. 30 minutes. We are all bundled up in layers of clothes as it is minus 20 outside, but the post office is boiling hot - only people keep opening the door, and then it is momentarily freezing cold. It is very uncomfortable in the queue. I get to the front, and just as I go to move forwards, an old woman digs me in the ribs with her elbow, and stomps on my foot as she pushes past me. She doesn't apologise, either, and she just carries on with her business.

Just tell me how that isn't rude ...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Berni, I also learnt the same, and certainly anyone who wants to get pregnant also believes that. If they don't want to be pregnant, they say they aren't sure when we can say it really is a human life (as opposed to Martian, I guess) and that means that up until a certain point, if they have an abortion, they aren't killing anything. Cool idea, huh? Great way out. ; )

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Not if you don't have sex.

The point is, pregnancy should be so respected and taken seriously that if getting pregnant is such a disaster, then the woman should not have sex in the first place. Or, if she does with contraception, she should accept that it isn't 100% effective, and if she happens to get pregnant, she should honour that.

This whole thing is about respect and honour. And easy abortion encourages lack of both.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


If getting pregnant is that desperate a situation, she should make sure she doesn't get pregnant in the first place. Krotko na temat.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


First thing: we are not living in Ireland in the 1850s. Women are not going to be stoned to death if they have a child out of wedlock. And in the UK at least, we are so compliant that the idea of your standard Next-shopping, M&S-loving late 20-something even knowing what an 'underground abortion' is, is fairly unlikely. They go to the GP, and do what she says. So if the GP says 'Lovely! You're going to have a baby'!' the woman says 'Oh yes! Lovely'. It is like that here. Believe me.

In Poland ... there is more of a sense of self-determination, I know. So I guess women might there say 'Huj ... ok ... you don't want to sign the piece of paper ... I'll ask Magda to talk with Kamilek, who will be able to get Jacek to fix me up with some pills, and that will be that ... ' - and that, to be frank, is her choice.

If a woman is so stupid as to go for an unregularised abortion, without medical control, then on her own head be it, as far as I am concerned. Yes, I can understand it in Ireland in the 1850s. I can understand it in London in the 1960s. But not anywhere in the EU in 2012.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


I agree. It should be that if you get pregnant through carelessness and you say you don't want the baby, you have to give birth and then decide. If you still don't want it, the baby is adopted.

Now I bet THAT would halve the unwanted pregnancy rate overnight ...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


At the time, there was no internet.

And they don't teach you about serious emotional consequences in Biology ...


I like you too, 4 F : ) Thank you for getting it : ) (and for trying to make it simple for others ...)


I think I'm the only one who has brought any personal experience into this, apart from those women who have said they would never have kids. Totally not trying to score points - just to share relevant experience.


Which takes time. Years. And experience. Unless you are one of those ladies who is always extremely sure of herself, and has been from a young age ...

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


Actually, to some degree it is. (and it's 'an' abortion)

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Before abortion I didn't feel like I was about to permit murder - if I had, wouldn't have done it.
Afterwards, it felt as if I had permitted murder.
If I had been properly informed beforehand, I wouldn't have done it.
Choice is all very well so long as it is a fully informed choice, and that would involve, e.g., scans and pictures and literature about the development stages of the unborn child.

Choice at the moment in the UK is boll*cks, as far as I am concerned.
I wish I'd been in Poland, where my child would have been respected and protected.

May not be 140 characters, but hope digestible.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]


I didn't feel like that before I had the operation, because the whole system here is set up to present a 'termination' as an ok thing to do - it isn't really a life - it is just a tiny blob - you will quickly recover and everything will be fine.

The reality of the procedure, and of my reaction to it, and of my increasing experience and wisdom over the years of how precious each life actually is, and how precious each of my children - all of this is something I only had access to after having 'made' the decision.

And my one and only point about abortion is that women should be made as fully aware as possible of what they are doing, and what they are THROWING AWAY, to ensure they are in absolutely the best position to make as informed a choice as is possible, despite in the case of first-time mothers, their total lack of experience of pregnancy and having a child.

And I don't think this is done. Because people fighting for 'choice' won't allow women to hear the full facts, because they think that will ... what? Put them off? Make them feel bad about their 'choice'? Maybe it will make some women think so hard that they don't have an abortion, yes. And then later, they won't have to regret it. They will in years to come think (at least some of them) 'Phew - thank God I didn't have a abortion - what was I even thinking??'.

And to my mind, if only one single woman is spared the emotional torment I have to live with as a result of that 'decision', then it is worth it.

So all I want is full information, no air-brushing, no talk of lifeless blobs - because that is not how it works afterwards. Afterwards one starts to think things like ' hang on - I will now not ever see the face of my child'. Or 'I will never know if I had a girl or a boy' (although I am certain I had a girl, and have been right with the other two so probably right). Or 'What ... did they do with the body of my unborn child?'. And a whole host of other awful questions. And the thing is, I have my whole life to think about that. And you can bet your bottom dollar that those who did it, and took the money, don't have a second thought about it.

I am just so sorry that I trusted a flawed system, and yes, I am angry that a law designed to protect exactly people like me was just blatantly flouted. The law says that abortion can only be given to a mother if she will suffer much more physically or emotionally if she goes through with the pregnancy. I ran out of the hospital once. Surely that should have raised doubts in their mind about my suitability for this procedure? I was 21. I knew nothing. I was very naive. And they failed me. And my parents also failed me.

So no, I am not keen on 'choice' when it isn't a real choice. There is so much talk about those women who 'desperately' want an abortion, and so desperately need to be allowed their 'choice' and their 'rights' over 'their body'. But what about a woman who doesn't even yet grasp the implications of her actions, and is channelled into the preferred 'sensible' behaviour by those around her, and denied - yes, denied - access to the full facts? I can tell you that if I had had to have a scan, and see pictures of the developing child at the time when I had the abortion, and to see pictures post-abortion, then I would not have done it. And if someone had also talked to me about the long-term, lifetime implications of regret - I would not have.

But nobody did. And I think that is a failing in the system, and, frankly, in the law.

So I am not against choice. I am pro a real choice.

And yes ... I do wish I had been brought up in a country that considered abortion a terrible thing to do, and something that should only be done as an absolute last resort in the case of medical emergency. I really do.

Ok. I will shut up now. Not sure what else there is for me to say.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Yes, I would certainly entertain that thought. I find it fairly astonishing that some things they do aren't even commented upon, or at least not by the general populace.

Oh, it's all a big con, it's all about money and making things go the way they want, and about power.


And it wouldn't even have been a termination, strictly speaking, because the pregnancy had already failed. A termination is deliberately intervening to end a pregnancy, which in turn of course terminates the life of the unborn child. In this situation the unborn child was already doomed, and a natural termination was already in process. To aid this process medically, to make it as safe as possible for the mother, and frankly to make it as quick as possible for the dying child, would have been the merciful and surely medically correct thing.

You would have thought that on such an issue, the Irish authorities could have made sure that every health professional in the land knew the rules. Ie, that if it was a case of an emergency such as this, and the life of the mother in danger, then the natural process should have been managed and assisted.