We learned last week in Polish that gorszy means “worse.” An irregular formation of the adjective zly (“bad”), it mirrors the irregularity of English: “bad, worse, worst,” not “bad, badder, baddest”—except in limited colloquial contexts. The comparative/superlative sequence zly, gorszy, najgorszy remains otherwise unremarkable, except that gorszy is a nickname of mine, one whose newly revealed meaning comes as a bit of a surprise and a disappointment. I had thought better of myself, always an intellectual error for those with no shortage of self-esteem.
Gorszy, what I had previously thought of as a term of endearment, represents an intentional corruption of Josh, first Jorsh or Gorsch or Gorschen, diminutivized at last into the affectionate, Gorschie, or, in Polish, Gorszy. Other brothers’ names have been similarly nicked: (James) Julian to Noodles, Eric to Reerack, and Neil Joseph to NeeNeeJoj. One can easily imagine their word histories. But imagine finding, too, a word’s, a name’s, secret meaning, and finding in that meaning reproof, a reminder of inferiority.
Not a bad thing, actually. It calls to mind the wickedly funny little poem by Wislawa Szymborska, “In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself.” We Poles, we humans, have a gift for self-deception regarding our own goodness. “If snakes had hands,” she writes, “they’d claim their hands were clean.” And if they had conscience and language, just like us. It is good for Polish to remind me that we have conscience and language and badness in our being—and worseness, at least in mine. I do take some consolation in the fact that my nickname fails of the superlative. Moderation in all things.
