Genealogy / Seeking Czarniecki family members and ancestors from Lublin, also Margiewicz, Danilowicz and Andrulewicz [77]


It is because Jews were omnipresent in Poland and in Polish culture

Back to Adam Mickiewicz, I strongly doubt that if he had Jewish ancestors, the fact could have been effectively hidden from the public. He is simply too great an icon in Poland, so too many scholars would have been interested to uncover the truth. Hiding such a fact would have only been possible when all Polish scholars were anti-semitic, this in turn being possible only if all Polish people were antisemitic, too, As such a thesis seems extremely absurd, perhaps even in the eyes of the most anti-Polish visitors to the PF forums, a possible explanation is that it is a kind of a myth cherished by some. And indeed, the title of the reference given by the other poster may explain it all:


"Cultural Mythology" is a crucial expression here. So, if "allegedly, when one scholar tried to write indepth about this, she was blocked by a certain sector of the Polish academia" just because the scholar may have been obsessed with an idea that could be easily dismissed on scientific grounds.

Life / Why Poles are so crazy about their country? [55]

He's proud because he was an AK partyzant.

Real Estate / How are Poland's properties priced? [51]


Actually, I was refering to the information published in the Polish quality daily Rzeczpospolita, which - I'm pretty sure - quoted American sources on that. As I'm not a subscriber to the online version of the paper, I'll pass these American sources to you, as soon as I find my printed copy.

Describing this information as "idiotic" reflects your enormous disbelief in the breadth and depth of the property crisis in the US rather than in the actual facts. Bidding one dollar for a house means that the banker says "this house here is worth nothing to me". Such a price is the "dress code" for the houses whose owners have gone to live under the bridge leaving the houses to the bank as they are no longer able to pay their mortgages for which they were not eligible from the very beginning at all.

News / Can a Polish person give up EU handouts? [15]

Greece is cheating, Bulgaria is cheating, now they say that even France is cheating (although France merrily admits herself it that she's been cheating - Mon Dieu, quelle bonne volonté pour la part de la France!). But then they all, those awful foreigners, who come to the PF will tell everyone that it is Poland who is cheating! Then Greg, the brave Polish patriot, will come along and - as his humble gesture to posterity - will proudly reject all the money being offered to Poland by the EU. And yes, Greg will be right - if we aren't getting any money, we will not be able to fraud it. But I myself would object, I think we are entitled to this money as compansation for the damage inclicted on us during the WWII by some presently EU countries (Germany), or for not delivering us the promised help against Germany by some other presently EU countries (Britain and France). But then Harry will inevitably step in and say that Poland as utter cowards during that WWII is not entitled to any compensation. If Seanus reads all this and kindly confirms that Harry has a good point here, Harry and Greg will be able to say at last "United We Stand!"

Life / Why Poles are so crazy about their country? [55]

In 800 years time, the US may not even exist, so the US Americans may not have the chance to have complexes ...

Life / Why Poles are so crazy about their country? [55]


... and be sure the child was Macedonian, too.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

The nature of your question shows that you are a very advanced learner (or may I call you 'very advanced user"?) of Polish indeed. I'm sure you can do it yourself, only bearing in mind that you will have to distiguish between groups of people of same sex versus mixed groups/groups of minors.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


Calm down, mate, calm down (and don't write everything in bold, what you'll write in normal letters will be perfectly visible)! I suggested to Fuzzy to translate the stuff himself as trying to do it on your own is better than simply reading what someone else has written.

"Five ears" would be pięcioro uszu, just as "two ears" would be "dwoje uszu", in the anatomical sense (human or animal ears). In the plural without any accompanying numeral it will be "uszy" as, for example, in the sentence "miej oczy i uszy otwarte". When we talk of ucho in the sense of the handle of a bag, it is: jedno ucho, dwa ucha, trzy ucha, cztery ucha, pięć/sześć/siedem etc. uch/usz/uszów.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


Actually, it did.


I do assume you already know how to do it. That's why I wrote you should answer your question yourself.


What you are writing here is just too personal, so I'm not going to answer it. If you want to discuss such personal matters, I suggest that you turn to other members of this forum who would be eager to discuss these things with you. There are several threads on "Polish girls" and reading them and interfering with them could probably turn you on.

All in all, I understand you do not wish any comments from me on your Polish. Agreed, I promise I will never again intervene with your language questions or views regarding the Polish language.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


I am Polish, I was born in Poland, my native tongue is Polish and I've always lived in Poland except for the six month in the 1980s when I lived in the UK totally immersed in an native-English speaking environment; it why my Polish is probably better than yours, but I've never said yours might not be as good as mine or better.

FUZZYWICKETS

As I promised, I am not going to respond to any of your posts relating to langage any more, so please do not bother to engage me into any discussion on that, as you did in your last post (number 664).

I am not going to change my style of writing. If you don't like it, please do not read my messages. English is not my native language, I've been learning it mostly by myself, so my style may seem irritating to some.

I've never been calling ayone names on this forum, so I am not going to follow your example and address you by names such as "Yoda of something" or "pompadour", adding to it stuff like "boo hoo hoo" and "OOOHHH".

If you are going to "call me out on my tone of writing every time" I post, I'm going to quote what you've written towards me in post nr 662 every time you will call me out:


to show people you are rude enough to go into such personal insults at the same time critisizing someone else's "tone" of writing.

If you are a citizen of the world, you should observe rules of behaviour that are universal to people in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

If you are only a frustrated American of the United States, you should read Rule 8 of this American Forum's "Rules and Code of Conduct" which is:

if, from the moderators perspective, the intention of the poster is to ridicule another poster, the offensive post may be removed without warning and the poster may be suspended,

since from now on I am going to report to moderators all your posts attempting to ridicule me, as threatened in your post 664, as posts violating Rule 8 of the Code of Conduct.

History / Lord Conway's rule and Poland in 1772 [35]


Nearly 20 years later there happened something that could have spared Poland the fate of partitions. Wiliam Pitt the Younger wanted to curb Russia's strengh assuring at the same time safety to Turkey and Poland in order to restore the balance of power in Europe. So England, Prussia and Holland in coallition demanded that Russia signed a peace treaty with Turkey with the status quo ante, but Catherine II refused saying Rusia must keep at least Oczaków and the lands towards the Dniestr river that she conquered on Turkey in 1788.

British ambassador in St. Petersburgh, Lord Whitworth, was convinced that time had come to force Catherine II to concessions. But England could only challange Russia if she could have assured timber supply for building her ships from another source than Russia. That other source of timber could only be Poland.

Poland would have been a beter trading partner to Britain than Russia (Britain's trade deficit with Russia was nearly one million pounds a year) as Poland imported a lot more of English produce, and a lot of Russian goods were originally from the eastern part of the Polish Cmmonwealth, shipped through the Russian port of Riga. William Pitt carried on talks on the issue with Franciszek Bukaty, the Polish ambassador in London, and with Michał Ogiński, the Polish representative in Hague. Any trade agreement between England and Poland implied the participation of Prussia, however, but Prussia, knowing its strong stance in the deal, let their partners know that they would cooperate only if Poland concedes the city of Gdańsk and the city of Toruń to them. In other words, the entire plan of Wiliam Pitt the Younger to curb Russia, to which plan he won Sweden, Turkey, Danmark and Holland, was based on the assumed ceding of Gdańsk and Toruń by Poland to Prussia.

(to be continued)

History / Lord Conway's rule and Poland in 1772 [35]

No, I haven't. What's the title of the book?

Language / Getting the wrong ending of a word - do Polish still understand? [25]

Out of pure curosity. I wonder what the reaction of the seller could be, if Alice asked him this question using the dual number which became extinct in the second half of the 18th century: Poproszę dwie jabłce.

News / Are there interests that Poland share with Russia? [50]

Geo-strategic interests? I think we have economic ones, we buy their gas which they sell us, for example. But if we had any geo-strategic interests with Russia, they would immediately say to us: "Kuritsa nie ptitsa, Polsza nie zagranitsa", and as we don't want to form part of the Russian empire again, we would say "No, thank you".

News / Are there interests that Poland share with Russia? [50]


If the Germans wanted to buy one, two or more islands of Greece recently, why shouldn't they want to buy the Kaliningradskaja Oblast from Russia?

News / Are there interests that Poland share with Russia? [50]


But the Americans bought Alaska of the Russian Empire in 1867, even before the discovery of gold deposits there, despite it not being a warm an sunny land, but a deserted hole full of Eskimo people and Indians! No prospects of gold digging in the Kaliningradskaja Oblast?

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


I'm afraid that what you say is unfortunately true. You need no Freudian therapist to discover it once you've visited this forum. With a few exceptions, they just cannot hide the feeling of superiority over everything that is Polish, though some of them really try to hide it. If a Polish person seems to be too "intelligent" to them, some of them will just ignore you, some will openly attack you as in the case of FUZZYWICKETS who made such an attack against me (see post 662 of this thread and my reply to it in post 668). I sometimes have the impression that those who stay in Poland for longer because of business are simply some "exiled" persons who, as ancient employees of "East Indian Company" in India, just long for good old "England" or "Scotland" or "America" or whatever.

The PolishForums.com, despite the true effort of its founders, seem to deter people who would have to say "something" and attract more and more people who have no other interests than Polish girls or who endlessly raise the point of how "stupid" the Polish language is.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [682]


The Kremlin, that is Prime Minister Putin, met his Polish counterpart in Katyń a few days earlier. On that day it was the official Polish-Russian celebration of the tragedy of Katyń. Today's celebrations were meant as entirely "Polish" event, so the presence of any Kremlin officials were not envisaged at all. The Polish central bank governor Sławomir Skrzypek was just among the many Polish representatives for these celebrations.

News / Polish President Lech Kaczynski and gov officials die in a plane crash in Russia [682]

Lech Kaczynski was neither anti-Russian nor anti-semitic for that matter. I am not a supporter of his party, Law and Justice, but saying he was anti-Russian is simply not true. He fought for the cause of Poland and opposed Putin who tried to play one member of the EU against another or against the rest of the EU. But what Putin did, and what Kaczyński counteracted, is a normal game in politics. On the other hand, President Kaczyński was for the Polish-Russian reconcilliation with all his heart. I heard the Polish co-president of the Polish-Russan Commision for Resolving Difficult Matters saying the late President once met with the two co-presidents of this commission telling them he was never ever in his life anti-Russian and that he wished sincere reconcilliation between our two nations. The Commision was doing a great job, and many people behind-the-news, such as the Polish ambassador in Moscow Jerzy Bahr, had a great share in that on the Polish side.

Such people here on the forum as Evalina on the Polish side, and KonstantineK on the Russian side, are simply spreading hatred between the Poles and the Russians, looking always into the past and never into the future, and always blaming others, like the late President Kaczyński or Prime Minister Putin, for spreading that hatred.

News / Russian air traffic controllers ignored communication protocol of Polish pilots? [194]


You can't warn a pilot not to land. You close the airport to tell people to not land. When the airport is open, it is like telling you: you are allowed to land, if you judge your plane able to land.

Have you ever stopped your car in front of a bridge where they warn you: "We advise you not to go beyond this point. This bridge may collapse!" ? You get another message instead: STOP! THIS BRIDGE IS CLOSED!

News / Russian air traffic controllers ignored communication protocol of Polish pilots? [194]

So warning pilots means telling them of the risk of landing. Byt then you cannot say: Didn't I tell them not to land? You only can say: I warned them of the risk of landing, and these two are completely different things.

News / Russian air traffic controllers ignored communication protocol of Polish pilots? [194]


If the pilot refuses, he takes the risk of landing. But then you cannot say to the pilot, as you said they did,


to stay up or go to another airport. And I'm not telling the control tower is to blamed for the crash, possibly another type of plane with the same pilot could have avoided the crash, but that is pure speculation. None of the people here are experts, including the Polish TV cited by Evalina, we should simply wait for the outcomes of the investigation.

Po polsku / Policzmy się! [80]

Wart Pac pałaca, a pałac Paca.

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]


An interesting point, indeed. Mastering a foreign langauage, regardless of whether its grammar is complicated or not, is always a great challange, even for talented people. You can even study a language for the mere sake of learning it, just to keep your brain going well; lots of people love to do cross-words which is easier, but also challenging in a similar way.

For some dedicated morons, however, it will always be smarter to complain endlessly how a given language is difficult and how its grammar is "stupid".

Po polsku / Policzmy się! [80]


... ale tylko w połowie ;-)

Language / Polish was chosen the HARDEST LANGUAGE in the world to learn... :D [1558]

Convex
I just wonder: are you comparing this discussion to "juice readily pressed" or you doubt that it is "pomarańcz" (masculine gender), but you think it should be "pomarańcza" (feminine gender)?

Language / oparty o/na? [6]


On the other hand, there exists the expression "w oparciu o ...", one in which you should never replace the preposition "o" with the preposition "na". Thus, the above sentences using this expression will be:

1. Sąd podjął decyzję w oparciu o opinie ławników.
2. Nasze prognozy zostały opracowane w oparciu o wyniki ankiet.

This could be a source of possible confusion in the language of native speakers.

Life / Why do Silesians call people from Warsaw "Gorole"? [15]

The Silesians call "gorole" the rest of people of Poland other than themselves, the native people of Upper Silesia. For themselves they will use the name "hanysy".

The use of "gorole" by Silesians should not be confounded with the use of "górale" in standard Polish in which it will mean "highlanders".

Life / Why do Silesians call people from Warsaw "Gorole"? [15]


It may be the case. In the language of Cieszyn Silesians, the term "gorole" may mean exactly what it means in standard Polish (górale), as opposite to the language of the rest of Upper Silesia. Cieszyn Silesia had been separated from the Prussian part of Upper Silesia from 1741 until 1919 as a part belonging to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Even before 1741 Cieszyn Silesia was a seperate entity known as the Principality of Cieszyn.

News / Polish, non-speakers told to bring interpreters to municpal buildings [7]

The article quoted is very critical of the practice in that office and says the newspaper contacted the superior of the clerks who just could not believe that such a notice was put up there, in a place where they also should deal with foreign people.