Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation

I have no idea.


I have no idea about this either. I thought maybe you meant Lechitic languages but I don't think you do. Still can't get the 'spider' either.

That`s what a proud and courageous Brit says! With such people like you Churchill defeated Nazis (in alliance with Poles and Ams, of course). You are a guessing role model for other posters. :):):)

Coz you are such, I will tell you that it came into being in 1960s when youngsters started playing big beat on their electric guitars. Before the rehearsal or actual concert, they had to connect their instruments to amplifiers. And then they checked on each other if everything was well connected.

Your guitar plays??
Yes, everything`s OK!!
Good!

No. A way of speaking used by a very specific group of people, all of them with chequered histories.

Think of a spider's web made of metal.


People always forget the Canadians and Indians.

OK, thanks for the explanation.


Prison slang?

Grypsera?

A wheel? I keep thinking this is some kind of transport.

Yes! Though more often nowadays it's just called gryps. At least it is in Warsaw; the language (and even the name for the language) varies from place to place.


Something fixed and immobile.

Edit. It's a metal grill fixed on the outside of a cell window.

I first heard it called 'gryps' (in a very non-Warsaw part of Poland) long before I knew the name 'grypsera'.... so that's not new at all.

One online dictionary gives 'złodziej strychowy' for 'pająk' though I'm not sure what that is... maybe a cat burglar?

There was an early 90s movie with a gymnast who became a cat burglar (for a good cause) called 'pajęczarki' so....

Gryps is a secret message on a little piece of paper that an inmate sends out of prison, usually through a mate who leaves.

Grypsera is the jargon of inmates. E.g,, what is anchor in inmates` language??

Sort of. More people who burgle the top floor flat in apartment buildings. The reason some top floor flats have a pająk over the window.


It can be, however the language is usually called gryps rather than grypsera by insiders nowadays. A very fast evolving language and with distinct variants from prison to prison.

When I heard it the person (not a prisoner but someone who was visiting for work reasons) referred to some words they had learned as 'gryps'... I've heard similar usage over the years....

I'd never have got that one!


Not just confined to cells then.

A big thing in Polish cities where people don't generally have contents insurance.

Another gryps word is "Cadillac" (a single bed in a cell), and one of the better known ones is "kosa"; can you guess what it means?

Sometimes prisoners say "nie zarzucać, idę na krótko" or "nie zarzucać, idę na ostro". When do they say this?

Knife?


Does this have anything to do with eating?

Yes.


Yes. Zarzucać is about eating.

They aren't the most delicate of sentences.

Another easy one.

To hold two magpies by the tail. What does it mean?

I'm far from being an expert, but shouldn't that read: "To catch(grab?) two magpies by one tail"

two birds, one stone....

In Polish the idiom is: trzymać dwie sroki za ogon

I think the translation is correct? I think there are other versions of this idiom though.


Yep :) Or to deal with several matters at the same time.

well, maybe you know something that I do not, but I never encountered it in this form, but rather this form: "Złapać dwie sroki za jeden ogon"

Catch or hold, both are correct.

pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/trzyma%C4%87_dwie_sroki_za_ogon

Another easy one.

' Where dogs bark with their asses' - what does it mean?

This doesn't mean anything to me.

That does surprise me unless it's not commonly used these days.

In Polish:

'Tam gdzie psy dupami szczekają'

If no-one else has a go I'll post the meaning.

it means more or less the same thing as "Tam gdzie diabeł mówi dobranoc" (Where the devil says good night")

Where the crows don't fly...

Correct! A remote backwater. Somewhere in the ass end of nowhere.

A similar expression exists in German, lit. "A place where the hares and the foxes bid each other a good night".

I see it has become trendy in the forum to exploit ass topics.... :):):):)

A famous Pole said once - it all starts with an ass and ends with it too. I don`t remember who said it without googling.

A new one:

'Like aunt in Czechia' - what does it mean?