{"id":508,"date":"2009-03-18T17:41:49","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T21:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=508"},"modified":"2009-03-18T17:41:49","modified_gmt":"2009-03-18T21:41:49","slug":"brussels-says-get-rid-of-pani-and-panna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/brussels-says-get-rid-of-pani-and-panna\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels Says – Get Rid of “Pani” and “Panna”"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is this I\u2019m hearing about the paper pushers in Brussels telling us to not use words such as \u201cPani<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cPanna<\/strong>\u201d? Or “Madame” and “Mademoiselle”, “Frau\u201d and \u201cFraulein” and so on\u2026 Seriously, does anyone still even bother with those panna<\/strong>\/mademoiselle\/fraulein forms?<\/p>\n

The great majority of people I know never even use the word \u201cPanna<\/strong>\u201d when addressing a young woman. In my family, the only person who was allowed to call us that was my grandpa, when he was still alive. I only identified myself as \u201cPanna<\/strong>\u201d when asked for marital status on official documents. But that was when I was still a single woman. In normal conversations, people have been calling me \u201cPani<\/strong>” since time immemorial. Even when I was very much a panna<\/strong> at the age of 17.<\/p>\n

So, I have absolutely no idea what the EU\u2019s problem is with \u201cPani<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it their lack of understanding of our beautiful, but convoluted language?<\/p>\n

Back in the olden days \u201cPani<\/strong>\u201d referred to a married matron, that much is true. But these days it\u2019s just a simple, polite expression to address any and all women and has nothing to do with whether these women are married or not. For crying out loud, there are private high schools in this country, where the staff are required to address their students as \u201cPan<\/strong> so-and-so\u201d and \u201cPani<\/strong> so-and-so.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the first part of this language directive from Bruksela<\/strong> is utter nonsense, but I must admit I kind of agree with the second part.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t want us to use the feminine forms of certain nouns describing occupations. Oddly enough, this is something I\u2019ve already been doing for years. And I just know this will not endear me to my Polish-speaking readers, who are rather orthodox about preserving the purity of the Polish language. (As if Polish could be pure. Yeah right!)<\/p>\n

Instead of saying, for example, \u201clistonoszka<\/strong>\u201d (female mail carrier) I\u2019ve always been saying simply \u201clistonosz<\/strong>\u201d (mail carrier), or if I wanted to be really specific, then: \u201cpani listonosz<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Same with \u201cpolicjantka<\/strong>\u201d (policewoman). I just say \u201cfunkcjonariusz policji<\/strong>\u201d or \u201coficer policji<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n

What really irks me is the double standard of how we refer to TV weather people. You know, those types who tell you it will be snowing in morning and smile, as if it was the best news ever. The women doing the smiling and telling are commonly known as \u201cpogodynki<\/strong>\u201d (singular: pogodynka<\/strong>). Comes from \u201cpogoda<\/strong>\u201d (weather).<\/p>\n

But the guys are \u201cprezenterzy pogody<\/strong>\u201d (singular: prezenter pogody<\/strong>). Why the difference? What? Guys don\u2019t want to be called \u201cpogodynki<\/strong>\u201d? Well, technically, \u201cpogodynka<\/strong>\u201d is a feminine noun, but what\u2019s the big deal? Just call him \u201cpogodynek<\/strong>\u201d instead. But of course, it would be considered goofy and unprofessional. So it looks like it\u2019s OK to call a woman by a cutesy, unprofessional nickname, but not a guy. Not fair.<\/p>\n

My system of using the masculine version for both men and women is also very economical, especially when you\u2019re just learning Polish. Because then you don\u2019t have to think too much about: \u201cwhat the heck do I call this woman with the dental drill\u201d<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Hint: in my world, she would be \u201cdentysta<\/strong>\u201d (dentist, masculine form), just like a man. Or \u201ca torturer\u201d, depending on the situation. (And did you know that modern dental drills can rotate at up to 800000 RPM?)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the news blurb<\/a> about this EU decision (in Polish).<\/p>\n

And next week, I\u2019ll give you a whole bunch of those masculine-feminine occupations. You\u2019ll have to wait until next week, because on Friday we\u2019ll be drowning Marzanna<\/strong>. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m ready to drown something. Anything to bring on warmer weather!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is this I\u2019m hearing about the paper pushers in Brussels telling us to not use words such as \u201cPani\u201d and \u201cPanna\u201d? Or “Madame” and “Mademoiselle”, “Frau\u201d and \u201cFraulein” and so on\u2026 Seriously, does anyone still even bother with those panna\/mademoiselle\/fraulein forms? The great majority of people I know never even use the word \u201cPanna\u201d…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[306823,7390,2906,7413,74,2993,3324,7503,7504,7523,306838,7544,7615],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-culture","tag-eu-directives","tag-feminine","tag-formal-forms","tag-gender","tag-masculine","tag-occupations","tag-pani","tag-panna","tag-pogodynka","tag-polish-language","tag-professions","tag-weather-presenters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}