Polish, as I understand it

After a clue asking about a large kitchen knife... Clue: Duży nóż kuchenny ...it got me thinking that I only know the one Polish word for knife, nóż , and considering I'm keen in the kitchen and talk a lot about food and cooking, I thought I'd best find the names of a few knives. Nóż do warzyw - veg knife Nóż  do obierania - translates as peeling knife, but I think it's what we would call a paring knife.  Nóż do chleba - bread knife Nóż do fioletowania - filleting knife Nóż szefa kuchni - chef's knife Tasak - cleaver (not in photo - currently, I do not have a cleaver) Answer: Tasak

Clue: Mała sterta siana - small pile of hay. I live in a semi-rural area of England but know a limited amount about farming practices.  Even if I did, this may well be an antiquated term in English   Kopa - large pile of hay - Haystack Kopka - small pile of hay - Haycock Answer: Kopka  Farming seems like good honest work, which brings us to the next clue: Clue: Żadna nie hańbi. Answer: Praca This answer I did not get until I had most of the letters.  I believe it refers to the proverb: żadna praca nie hańbo - no job is a disgrace.  Which, on the face of it and as it was intended, is an honourable sentiment.  Perhaps coined before the advent jobs like: the leader of UKIP, a position once held by Nigel Farage and currently, at the time of writing, held by Neil Hamilton.  Until I looked, I didn't realise that UKIP was still going.  Surely there is no need now that they have returned the UK to its glory days when we were the sick man of Europe....

The origins of the English and Polish names for this herb go back to the Latin for healing, salvia.  Both the Polish szałwia and the Old English salvie hold close to the original Latin.  After the Norman Conquest, the French influence was apparent in Middle English with sauge which, over time, became sage.  The French, sauge, itself coming from the Latin, salvia. I was looking at the herb sage, but I couldn't help wonder about it's wider use in English.  A sage being a wise person or sage used adjectivally for wisdom.  I had always committed the etymological sin of making an assumption about the origin of the word without any evidence.  I got it into my head that sage was believed to be good for the brain, hence its use to mean wisdom.  It seems, however, that we get it from the Old French for wisdom, sage, which comes from Gallo-Roman sabius and back to Latin.  This time, not to salvia for healing, but to sapere, to have good taste or discernm...

Google translate is an incredibly handy tool for translating foreign web pages, but sometimes its limitations can raise a titter in the most childish of people - a section of society that I am unashamedly a member of. Clue: Słucha komend bosmana - answers to the bosun/boatswain. Answer: Mat .  A member of the crew whose position I couldn't find a translation or equivalent to, so I had to google it in Polish. The position of Mat was apparently between the position of cabin boy, majtek , and boson, bosman .  However google translated the page thus: Regarding majtka, it is likely that the name of the garment comes from the name of the job role.  The cabin boys wore short trousers  and the name of the similar undergarment is believed to have come from the title majtka for cabin boys.  The word majtka itself is thought to possibly come from a mix of matelot (French for sailor), maat or maatje (Dutch for companion).  I guess similar to us calling a certain style ...

In a previous week, we skirted Greece, visiting the Aegean sea and archipelagos. Now we sojourn in Greek mythology.  In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope waits for the return of Odysseus, but on what does she wait for him? Clue: Na niej czekała Penelopa na Odysa. - On it Penelope waits for Odysseus.  All I could remember was that Penelope waited pretty damn patiently for his return - twenty years - remaining faithful to her husband and somehow using a ruse involving the protracted weaving of a shroud to put off would-be suitors. Exactly how weaving her father-in-law's shroud prevents courtship I am unsure of, but let's not dwell on that.  Odysseus is King of Ithaca, the island upon which Penelope waits for his return.  Answer: Itaka. More Greek mythology. This time names of the Gods. The God of War.  Mars to the Romans; Ares to the Greeks.  Clue: Grecki bóg wojny. - Greek god of war.  Answer: Ares.  Clue: Hymn na cześć Apolla . - A hymn to Apollo.  ...

The vocative case is one that should be really straight forward.  Of all the grammatical cases, it is the one that seems to have the clearest rule.  It is used when you are addressing someone. For example:  Mamo , gdzie są moje skarpetki? - Mum, where are my socks? Mama is being addressed so takes the vocative form Mamo. So the next time I talk to my friend, I use her name in the vocative case.  Oh no, no.  You don't do that these days in speech.  Just use the nominative case for people's names, unless it's Mum or Dad etc. OK got it.  Used rarely in speech, but used in writing. But, why do everyday objects have a vocative form? Should I be talking to my toaster? When the vocative form was assigned to all nouns back in antiquity, did they predict that one day in the future there would be chirpy talking toasters offering grilled baked goods and light banter?

Following on from yesterday's stony theme. Today's broadens from stone to geographical features.  Clue: Przylądek w pd. Chile .  Firstly, pd. is an abbreviation of południe (south).  Przylądek is a cape as in a large / high headland that juts out into a body of water.  An example of this, found in south Chile, is Cape Horn. Answer: Horn. In working this one out, I learned that another word for a headland in Polish is cypel , which is a very narrow headland, like Hel on the Baltic coast of Poland. And for a peninsula, the polish word would be  półwysep . As far as I can see in both English and Polish, peninsula / półwysep is a broad term for a landform projecting into a body of water that covers cypel and przylądek Elsewhere in the crossword book, there was a clue involving archipelago.  The Polish word, archipelag , being very similar.  I was aware that it described a collection of numerous small islands, but not much more than that. The word seems t...

So far, my crossword knowledge notes have been random collections of words and facts, jotted down as I come across them when completing crosswords.  As a break from the norm, today's words are stony. Clue: Oparcie, ostoja. Well, still having my L plates on with the Polish language, this one had me stumped until I had more letters on the crossword.  Both words in the clue had multiple meanings.  Oparcie, has been translated as support, backbone, backrest, reliance, base, foundation, footings, crutch, anchor (list continues).  Ostoja, has been translated as mainstay, support, prop, footing, backbone, refuge, anchorage (list continues). Answer: Opoka. Opoka, seems to mean hard sedimentary rock, but also is used colloquially for rock or stone and figuratively to describe sanctuary or solid, stable support.  So if you were to describe someone as your rock, the literal translation would seem to work on Polish, using opoka.  Like: "Kinga, moja opoka, bardzo mi po...

It's the way I am.  I learn by obsession.  I immerse myself in a subject to learn about it.  Desperate to practice what I have learned, no matter how small, as a way of ensuring I remember.  At first, the seemingly impossible, vast and bewildering collections of consonants, posed a challenge for a chap unaccustomed to the Polish tongue. I got so used to the struggle that, in the early days of learning, I'd catch myself trying to pronounce car registration plates as a reflex action.  Ever eager to try out my appalling pronunciation on random unwitting Poles, I'd leap at the chance if I heard even the vaguest Slavic accent.  I have learned several things from this: 1 - There's more Bulgarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians and Slovakians in my place of work than I thought. 2 - An awful lot of people from central and eastern Europe are polyglots - they speak multiple languages - so do understand what I am saying, if not exactly why. 3 - It seems that I neve...

A sandwich (kanapka) in Poland, tends to be an open sandwich; toppings sitting on a slice of bread, like a large canapé. In fact the word kanapka is the diminutive form of kanapa (sofa) which itself comes from the French word, canapé, for sofa. Its resemblance to the word canopy is no mere coincidence. A mosquito net over a bed was called a canopy from the Ancient Greek word, konops, for mosquito. Over time the word for the canopy over the bed, came to be used for the bed itself, then finally came to mean sofa. So the toppings of canapés and kanapki sit on little beds of bread.  I first heard the etymology of canapé from Something Rhymes with Purple , a splendid podcast by Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth. 

Clue: Sznur do detanacji ładunki. - Cord to detonate a charge. Answer: Lont. Not a word I'm likely to use every day.  It's not often I handle explosives, but how about the English idiom: to have a short fuse, to describe a quick temper?  Is there a Polish equivalent?  As far as I can see, yes, the phrase seems to be used word for word.  I read a report of an argument between journalist and TV personality, Szymon Hołownia and Marta Lempart, co-founder of Strajk Kobiet. The report quoted Hołownia as saying "Sam miewam krótki lont..." which translates as "I have a short fuse myself...".  Lont, being fuse  and krótki being the adjective short . Strajk Kobiet - women's strike- was started in protest to the erosion of women's rights (notably the move to ban abortions) in Poland since PIS gained power in 2015.  The law around abortion in Poland was already very strict. The number of illegal abortions estimated at being ten times higher than legal abortions...

 More words and facts I have learned from crosswords (krzyżówki) Clue: Leśna droga . - Forrest track / road. Answer: Dukt . Dukt, masculine noun.  A forest track created by cutting out a strip of trees.  Easy enough to remember by its resemblance to the English word duct .  Both English and Polish words habe the same origin, the Latin ductus , meaning leading / conducting. Clue: Alkaloid w Liptonie.  - Alkaloid in Lipton.  Caffeine (kofeina in Polish) is an alkaloid found in tea, including Lipton teas. Before it was known to be identical to caffeine, when found in tea, it was given the name theina , a word the vast majority of English have forgotten. It was certainly new to me when a Polish friend spoke of it. In Polish it is teina.  Answer: Teina.  Clue: Na niej pasą się owce. - Sheep graze on it.  Answer: Hala. Hala is a mountain pasture. Grazing pasture above the tree line. In other contexts, hala also means hall. 

More words and facts I have learned from crosswords (krzyżówki) A nice easy one to start off with.  A word very similar to our own. Clue: Wyspa wokół laguny - Island around a lagoon. A coral island consisting of a ring-shaped reef enclosing a lagoon is an atoll, in English. Answer: Atol . Very close to the English, which must mean they share the same origin.  Atoll is from the Divehi / Maldivian atolu , applied to the Maldive Islands, which are typical examples of this structure.  It seems atol  is given the same etymology and is closer to the origin word.  While we're on the subject: coral reef in Polish is rafa koralowa and The Great Barrier Reef is Wielka Rafa Koralowa .  Wielka being great (or huge), as in Wielka Brytania for Great Britain. Clue: ... Dmowski.   This clue suggests that purely by stating the surname, we should know the first name, or imię , of this person, so they must be very well known.  Also, I'm pretty sure we are talkin...

Polish words and more I have discovered through crosswords.  In a bid to expand my vocabulary and Polish general knowledge, I have started to, mainly by cheating with Google, complete crosswords (krzyżówki). Clue: Tam bój kościuszkowców - location of the Kościuszko battle. Answer: Lenino .   Lenino is a large village in Belarus and site of the 1943 Battle of Lenino, where the Polish 1st Tadeusz-Kościuszko Infantry Division fought along side the 33rd Soviet army against the Germans. Clue: "Pieprz i ...", z Tonym Halikiem - " Pepper and ..." with Tony Halik.   Answer: Wanilia   Tony Halik was a writer, explorer and documentary film maker.  He co-presented a long running programme with Elżbieta Dzikowska called Pieprz i Wanilia.   There were 300 episodes and they were broadcast over twenty years. The programmes were a way of seeing the world when foreign travel - and certainly travel outside the soviet bloc - was closely controlled by the com...

Happy New Year! Szczęśliwego nowego roku! It's a new year and a new blog.  I'm getting used to the layout and it would seem that for ease of finding my notes, I would be best putting them in pages rather than in blog posts.  So what shall I put in blog posts?  Perhaps rough notes made on the hoof?  Perhaps confessions of gaffs I make as I attempt to use Polish. The first gaff was in calling out a Polish surname.  I hadn't started to learn the language at this point and had only been given a few pointers.  All I had grasped was that sz was a bit like our sh  and cz  was a bit like our ch .  So, faced with the name Pycz, I confidently stride out to call it out.  What I know now, is that there is a very clear difference between shouting Pycz and Picz.  One will attract the attention of the barer of the name, the other will attract quite the wrong sort of attention.  Picz, I am reliably informed, is not at all polite.

These days, one  as a pronoun, tends to be avoided by the English masses, perhaps because it is viewed as sounding pretentious, but for most people it has been replaced by y ou  without much confusion when in context. A Polish friend once told me there is no direct equivalent to one in Polish.  I assume the Polish don't literally say, for example, where do you buy books  (when meaning where does one buy books) which would be Gdzie kupujesz książki?   Which I believe only means, where does the person you are asking buy books?  So, if that's no good and we can't ask where does one buy books?  then a different phrasing is required. Where are books bought?  Typed into Google Translate comes up with Gdzie kupuje się książki?  kupuje is conjugated as for the third person, as you would for one as a pronoun How is bread made? Jak się robi chleb? again, robi is the conjugation for the third person and się pops up again So się acts lik...