BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Polish American Slang for Polish words

This wasn't so much Polish slang as it was the taking of the english word "Car" and trying to make it Polish. A decent amount of Polish people in my area do it. Boat= boata, Pond= Pondu, Birthday = Burday and so on.....

�ay is the Turkish word for tea, pronounced 'tschai'

Nancy

We always called the dish rag a pomywaska. Not sure of the spelling. Some of the other words Frank used are new to me.,

Basia

JAGA,
As long as we are on this subject.. There was something that I often thought about.
You are Polisah, but speak other languages.
Your Husband is German.
You both live and work in AMERICA.

SOOO, What language do you speak at home?

"Pomywaska" sounds so odd yet familiar. I asked my mom and she said it sounded familiar too. She says it's an older Polish word that they use to describe a "Dish-washer" mainly in a restaurant and so on. But she said the spelling is "Pomywaczka."

We Slovaks have long laughed over the Americanization of Slovak words - rather the opposite, the taking of American words and makeing them Slovak, much as you discuss in the Polonia Cara for Car. I wish I had a list of some of the words I have heard.

All that comes to mind is the bad joke of asking a Polish-American if they have their garachki with them. The puzzled answer is supposed to be "no", since they dare not admit to not knowing what garachki is. The follow-up question is then "Well then, how do you get in your garage without a garage key?"

Bet I win bad joke of the week for that one!

Kai

Well, I suggested that it is more Pidgin Polish. According to a dictionary, the definition might sound like this:
"any of several languages resulting from contacts between European colonists and local peoples, containing the elements of the local language(s) and Polish, French or Dutch." ha ha ha ha. Of course, local people are Americans. ha ha ha.

Indeed, "my" poem is a parody of Kraszewski`s poem, only the beginnings are the same.

The words in green are English by origin but spelled and pronounced in Polish. The word processor treats them as exotic, that`s why they are different colour. For example:
Dzian - John
retajer - retire
hauzik - house
peintowany - painted
porc - porch
stepsy - steps
sajd lok - sidewalk
plejs - place
garbydz - garbage
jard - yard
picies - peach tree etc

The poem in English could be like this, without rhymes:

Once upon a time there lived an old man and woman
He was called John, and her name was Mary.
They were both very aged, retired,
Feeling not very well, after they lived for so long.
They had a little house, they painted it every year,
With a porch on one side and steps to the sidewalk {...}

Frank, glad to see you've returned. Carl

Carl,
While you had your health problems and was in the hospital;
I too had a problem.. I suffered aa stroke and spent time in the hospital (10 days) It left me with some damage.. But nothing that I cant live with.
I have been wanting to know what happened to you.. I read up on Diabetes, but I got pretty involved and I know very little more than what I did before..
If you feel comfortable with it, I would love to hear the whole story.. After all, a month in a hospital is no cake walk .

Kai.
I think that the spelling of your joke should be garage-ski
We used ski on the end of everything
Brew---ski
shoe--ski
coat--ski etc
This was something the younger kids did a lot..
The old folks knew nothing of this

Thanks for the correction, Frank. It is hard for a Slovak-American to get Polish down right!

Ah, but you left off the newest in Polish vocabulary:

Pope-ski !

Kai