Poles have a thing for the negative, it seems, pay it special attention. The double negative rules in grammar: Nic, nie mam. “Nothing, I don’t have/I don't have nothing,” that is, “I don’t have anything.” Nikt, tu nie znam. “No one, here I don’t know;” or, “I don’t know anyone here.” Except when you triple negative: Nigdy, nigdzie nie ide. “Never, nowhere I don’t go.” “I never go anywhere.” Furthermore, when you negate a transitive verb, you highlight it by shifting the case of the object from accusative to genitive. (As if remembering the accusative weren’t tricky enough.) Nigdy, nie ma mleka, not Nigdy nie ma mleko. I can’t even think how to double negate this phrase in English; it means, “There’s never any milk.” (“Never not is there milk”?) And historically, of course, Poles were notorious for the Liberum Veto, the power of a single, noble, contrary member of the Sejm to forbid any legislation just by saying nie. Other great nugatory political principles stud the social fabric: Nic o nas bez nas (“Nothing about us without us”) and Nihil novi (“Nothing new”). There’s no mistaking: No meant something, nie.
Living as we do, in the land of the Everlasting Yea, where the power of positive thinking, issuing in great volumes of happy talk and promising slogans, “Yes, we can,” I appreciate the unvapid negative as strangely tonic, cantankerously inviting—if you don’t make it a habit. In what country do they say, “Maybe we can, perhaps not, but let’s give it a try”? Moze mozemy, moze nie, ale probujmy.
