What Did That Say???

Today, we talk about some of  the funnier aspects of the Polish language; words, phrases and unfortunate designations that just tickled my funny bone and continue to, even though I now know their meaning and proper pronunciation.

Rachunku (rah-tchoon-coo)

Arguably the first word of comical tones I ran across was when my Internet account was established.

The tech went about his business rather quickly and didn’t explain very much... probably because of the language barrier. He did speak English but this would not have been the first time I’d encountered someone too shy to make use of their language skills.

Gathering up his equipment, he averred that the answers to my every question would be in the contract I had just signed.

Permitting him to leave (might he have been afraid I would hold him captive with my queries?), I scanned the multi-page document he had left behind.

Unfortunately, it had not changed from its original Polish language version in the short time it took for me to see him to the door and lock it behind him. Still prominent on the front page was the word Rachunku.

I was elated to have such a thing, designated by a word that sounds just about like a sneeze!

RACHUNKU! Bless you!  

I have since learned that ‘ch’ in Polish makes a throaty R sound similar to the ‘H’ sound in Chinese and the ‘R’ sound in French. That doesn’t make that word any less funny because, even though I now know how it is correctly pronounced, in my mind it is still the sound of a violent sneeze.

That impression is not helped by another version of the word: rachunek which, if you adopt my pronunciation for it, sounds suspiciously like ‘watch your neck’!

Rachunek means ‘account’ or ‘receipt’ - as in ‘bill’, not receiving something.

O Smaku

It only took me a few weeks to find my staple dessert; an orange-flavored pound cake. The name of the cake, babka, itself is not funny; in fact I find it rather adorable. And the taste is nothing to laugh at either...

… well, depending on which brand you get. For some of them, that old adage about eating a slice and gaining a pound has real merit; some of those things are as dense as bricks! (and about as tasty...).

Still, that particular babka has become my go-to if I want something light, sweet and delectable. In fact, it reminds me of the delicately flavored cupcakes I used to be mad for in China!

I first saw that phrase on my fav babka packaging, and then noticed it on other food packages.

O smaku, loosely translated, means ‘with the flavoring of’. However, it would be easy, in a moment of frustration, to exclaim

Oh,  smack you!

Which is about the sound that phrase makes when pronounced properly. In fact, I could easily see both ‘o smaku’ and ‘rachunku/rachunek’ becoming memes.

Now, if I only knew how to create a GIF...

BóB

Keeping with the food theme, we uncover – not your uncle Bob, but something rather more laughable.

In Polish, the ‘Ó’ makes an ‘oo’ sound similar to ‘soon’, ‘moon’, and yes, even ‘spoon’ and ‘June’.

That means that, languishing in most Polish supermarket frozen food cases, one would be likely to find packages of ‘boob’ for a simmering stew or stir-fry.

Not that boobs are, in themselves, inherently funny. And it’s not even that that particular grouping of letters should be a cause for mirth.

Again, my imagination runs wild...

Husband: “Dear, what’s for dinner tonight?”

Wife: “Boobs and sausage”

Husband: “Yay! My favorite!”

You can see where this vision went wrong, I’m sure...

ZUT Rektory

Sometimes, it doesn’t help knowing several languages because you may see a word that is perfectly ordinary in one language that, in another language, would be the cause for much merriment.

Such is the case with the ZUT Rektory.

I first saw the signs indicating where one might find this place on one of my first outings here. Immediately, I had to wonder what would go on in such a place and why, of all things, it is designated a rectory!

Zut, in French, means ‘darn!’ or ‘damn!’

For the well-mannered French person, letting out a healthy ‘zut, alors!’ is a great way to vent frustration; when things aren’t going well and when the aggravation is driving one to distraction. Couple that with a word generally associated with a religious abode...

Now you can understand my bewilderment at melding ZUT and RECTORY into one phrase.

Being intimately familiar with the many applications of the French word ‘zut’, I had to wonder if people go the ZUT Rectory to wave their fists and shout, if there are designated ‘cussees’ - people whose job it is to take abuse from frustrated patrons... or, maybe it was just an apt designation of a bureaucratic enterprise.

Every time I saw such a sign, I imagined a host of possible conversations:

Wife: “Don’t tell me you’re going to the Zut Rectory again! It’s the third time this week...”

Husband: “If you’d leave me alone, I wouldn’t fell compelled to go there quite so often!”

Child: “Mama, what is a Zut Rectory?”

Mother: “Hush, child. You’ll learn once you get older.”

Child: “Darn!”

Mother: appalled...

NOTE: be sure to insert your favorite expletive in place of ‘Zut’ in these mock conversations to make them extra funny.

I live only minutes from the ZUT Rektory. I can assure you that there are no lines of aggravated people queueing out the door, no people angrily cussing and it doesn’t seem to be a source of frustration; in fact, it is an administrative office of the Zachnodpomorski University of Technology.

That long, complicated word that starts with Z is the district that university is in.

Now, having saved the best for last...

Before I reveal our last funny, a bit of cultural background.

The Polish folk are as devoted to their dead as are the Chinese. Being an overwhelmingly Catholic country, All Saints’ Day, November 1^st, is actually a national holiday that provides people the opportunity for a bit of maintenance on the resting place of, and communion with their ancestors.

Just like the Qing Ming observation in China, here, people sweep, clean, polish and adorn their loved ones’ grave stones. They also go to Church on that day and prepare special meals.

Unlike the Chinese Qing Ming, nobody here lights fire crackers or burns paper money. There is less belief in an afterlife, here. More specifically, the afterlife consists of being at God’s side.

I had wondered, last year in October, why my local hypermarket had so many candles and hurricane lanterns for sale; Luisa later informed me of the significance of this day.   

Okay, so we’re down with flowers – plastic, silk or real, candles with or without wind protection and taking the day off.

What I couldn’t wrap my head around was the grave stone polish. Not because it wasn’t a logical accessory for maintaining loved ones’ graves but because of its unfortunate brand name:

We all know that Hades is the god of the Dead in Greek mythology and that his name has become representative of the underworld: a dark, murky place that no mortal soul ever escapes from.

The conundrum presents in Polish people’s beliefs of what happens once one departs from this earth.

To be sure, there is purgatory in this belief system, a state wherein one must cleanse oneself of sins, after which God and the angels await.

To my knowledge, there is little desire in Poland to send one’s beloveds to Hades, where they would dwell in perpetual murkiness and never see divine light.

Unless everyone thinks that their loved ones are all going to the Garden of Hesperides or the Isles of the Blessed – both of which are in Hades and represent exceptions to the dark and the murk; it is where only heroes dwell.

But that would make for an incredibly crowded island!

Just as mythologists are uncertain about the geography of Hades, I remain uncertain about the intent behind this gravestone cleaner’s brand name: was it a deliberate signal of a greater belief system, one I know nothing about (yet)?

Or was it a most unfortunate error of branding?