So, as I’ve been studying for my final in first-semester Polish, rehearsing my exercises in the “standard, literary” forms of the language, I confess to becoming a little bit bored—so much to memorize—and somewhat curious as to the relationship between what we are learning in class and lived life and the spoken word on the Polish streets and in the Polish fields. Hardly an original attitude at the end of the semester, but one I haven’t taken in many years. Turning away from my textbooks, I cracked the Kosciuszko Dictionary just for a change of pace, to find immediately on the inside cover Codzienne zwroty (“Useful expressions”), though we might also translate codzienne as “daily.” In either case, the list is truly, though darkly, comic.
Half, it seems, of the most useful, daily expressions in Poland are as follows: “Back off! You are under arrest! Get your hands off! Get down! Don’t touch me! Stand back! Stay down! Don’t move! Get away! Cut it out! Break it up! Let go of me! Hands up! Move it! Duck! You listen to me! Get lost! Get a doctor. Look out! Get an ambulance. Get out of here! Shut up! Stop that man! Pull over! Get out of the way! Leave me alone!” Except for that last one, I would hope never to use any of these, and in that one exceptional case, I would elide the exclamation point and add prosze, “please.” This list does not seem to be a holdover from the Communist Era; this edition was published in 2008. The rest of the list is not much more encouraging, though I have made use of Nie rozumiem (“I don’t understand”) already in class; and Zabladzilem (“I’m lost”) charms me. “Please,” “thank you,” (dziekuje) and “Where is the toilet” (Gdzie jest toaleta?) do not make the list. Very strange. As if they were less necessary for survival than “Duck!”
Usually, such black linguistic comedy results from the bad translation of menus, assembly instructions, directions, sales pitches, and speeches by Jimmy Carter—more often than not by do-it-yourselfers with one semester of foreign language under their belt. But this list is the work of among the most authoritative users of both languages. I surmise that the issue isn’t language or translation at all, but the mindset of lexicographers. Like me, they are quiet, word and book people, timid, and bruise easily. The streets and fields seethe danger and require almost constant warning and verbal aggression. The only daily, useful expression for our readerly world is “Shshsh.”
