"Poles" or "Polish people" - which is better to use?

It sounds a bit offensive.

The only time I've heard Polak in the UK was as a kid. My friend's father used to use it. He's served in the war with Poles and also worked with many so in this case I doubt it was meant to be offensive.

Meant to be... the US has a long history of offensive terms for people from just about every country.... name a source of immigration to the US and there will be slurs...

I remember hearing "Pollack" jokes long before I knew that Poland was a country... one theory is they were made popular by Borsht Belt Jewish comedians who'd carried stereotypes of backward and horndog Slavs with them from the Pale....

I think by the 1980s they had mostly died out.

So do we, though most of them (Wops, Dagoes, Frogs, Krauts) are either fairly mild or due to them being enemies in wars that we won. Also quite mild (but best be careful using) are Taffies, Paddies, Jocks, Kiwis, Aussies, Saffers etc. The stronger and less acceptable ones are either from the colonial era or about immigration

For Poles, that never happened so it tends to be neutral and the recent wave of immigration happened after people stopped making terms like that up.

I assume Jocks are Scottish? What are taffies and saffers?

I don't know of any bad words for the Welsh... maybe because there were far fewer and had a lower cultural profile than others from the British Isles....

Now that I think about it I'm not even sure about bad words for Scottish people.... English are Limeys (and maybe one or two I can't remember) and Irish are Micks or Paddies or Bog-hoppers

Getting closer to the topic of the thread.... Poles have slurs for Germans szwab maybe being the most common? and russians 'russki' is more insulting than 'rosjanin' and Czechs 'pepiki'... Italians 'makaroniarze' French żabojady and English angole.... not sure of many more...

Kind of unique to Polish is the use of non-virile forms as insults 'pany' instead of 'panowie' 'szwaby' instead of.... szwabowie? szwabi?

Welsh (Taffy from Daffydd) and Saath Ifrikens, specifically the white ones..

Every language probably has exonyms. Not all the Polish ones are polite of course.

I'd say that Pole, and Polak (when used in context) are polite.

Pollock doesn't sound very polite.

@Firestorm
Funny, I enjoyed that read, thanks!

I meant the word "pollock". I misspelled it.

I agree with you. That is an offensive term. To call a Polish person a "pollock" is offensive. If someone calls me that, I immediately correct them. Whether they like it or not.

Unfortunately most of the people who call me that are usually people of Polish descent. This only highlights the usage of the phase "dumb pollock" as was used in "All in the Family" TV series of a few decades ago.

The term Pollock is down to American ignorance.And is insulting because of its ignorance and lack of respect.
The word is Polak.
Which is not insulting at all.

But "Poles" are automatically people and what would be better "Polacy" or " ludzie z Polski"?

I would go with Poles and Polacy.

Poland and Poles are lucky with their "Pol..." as the core. USians ... not so much.
No, we are not "Americans" and we don't live in "America" or those words are meaningless. We might just as well call ourselves "Eartians". Almost as specific...

You are Amis (in German), what's bad on that?

@Alien
American is basically short of a human being who has the land named after Ameriga Vespucci as their home. I think it's a very broad term on purpose to include as many as possible

This is how I understand it.


That's what we were taught at school.

I was surprised to learn though that there's some textual evidence for the name that may pre-date Vespucci. How accurate that theory is may well be another issue.

Canadians, Americans from the southern part of those land masses etc must be annoyed that the term is so commonly used about one particular country only.

@jon357
Well that''s a very simple explenation, United States of America trumphs disunited states in America.

Similar to E.U vs Norway or E.U vs Russia, for every year that goes EU member states will mostly be called the Europeans due to being united vs disunited

Trumps?

Remember Europe isn't the EU and the EU isn't Europe.

@jon357
What made you think, I didn't know that

It isn't, is it. It's neither a superstate nor a nationality.

Anyway, that's drifting off-topic.and Milo's post gives the best answer in this thread: