Just the other day I was asked what (if any) Polish equivalents of these words would be, and frankly, I didn\u2019t have a clue.<\/p>\n
All the Poles I know refer to ice tea as \u201cice tea<\/strong>\u201d and news is \u201cnews<\/strong>\u201d, or sometimes \u201cnius<\/strong>\u201d. I checked with a couple of dictionaries, and asked a couple of people, and one of those people referred me to \u201cPoradnik J\u0119zykowy<\/strong>\u201d vol. 5. A practical Polish language handbook, of sorts, published by PWN<\/strong>. In this book a bunch of really smart people (though not as smart as Profesor Miodek<\/strong>, I think) dispense language advice. It’s a compilation of questions asked by ordinary Polish speakers with answers by the very highly educated Polish language experts.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure whether I like this book or not. It\u2019s useful, that\u2019s a fact, but some of those very smart people are so traditional and orthodox when it comes to our beautiful language that sometimes it’s hard to take their learned opinion seriously.<\/p>\n But, to my surprise, there was an entry on \u201cice tea<\/strong>\u201d in there (page 331) and \u201cnews<\/strong>\u201d (page 335).<\/p>\n First of all, there\u2019s this misconception in Poland that ice tea is just hot tea that got cold, but that\u2019s OK, I guess. Not everyone in Poland needs to make ice tea the way I make it. The real issue seems not how to make it, but what to call it. There\u2019s \u201ckawa mro\u017cona<\/strong>\u201d (ice coffee) in Poland already, so what\u2019s wrong with \u201cherbata mro\u017cona<\/strong>\u201d? Absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that it sounds a little goofy. And besides, most Poles I know refer to this beverage as \u201cice tea<\/strong>\u201d anyway.<\/p>\n The author of the entry on \u201cice tea<\/strong>\u201d agreed that \u201cherbata mro\u017cona<\/strong>\u201d would be an OK Polish “Polish” equivalent and left it at that.<\/p>\n The \u201cnews<\/strong>\u201d bit was a little more complicated. Apparently, it\u2019s a Polish word these days, and it\u2019s even been assigned a gender \u2013 masculine, to be exact. In plural it\u2019s \u201cnewsy<\/strong>\u201d. The author also advocates that the Polish spelling of the word should be \u201cnius<\/strong>\u201d. Because since we already have \u201cmejl<\/strong>\u201d, we might as well have \u201cnius<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n See? That was easy!<\/p>\n Oh, and don\u2019t forget, \u201cnews<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cnewsy<\/strong>\u201d decline like any other normal Polish noun would. So you\u2019d say \u201cPrzeczyta\u0142am<\/strong> (I read) ciekawego<\/strong> (interesting) newsa<\/strong>,\u201d if you’re talking about just one bit of news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just the other day I was asked what (if any) Polish equivalents of these words would be, and frankly, I didn\u2019t have a clue. All the Poles I know refer to ice tea as \u201cice tea\u201d and news is \u201cnews\u201d, or sometimes \u201cnius\u201d. I checked with a couple of dictionaries, and asked a couple of…<\/p>\n