{"id":634,"date":"2009-11-02T20:07:49","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T00:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=634"},"modified":"2009-11-02T20:07:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T00:07:49","slug":"kombinowanie-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/kombinowanie-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"Kombinowanie continued"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, let\u2019s go back to the issue of <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> for a few more minutes. Turns out that the person who claims that Poles are a cheating, scheming and otherwise dishonest bunch also reads this blog. Oh, hi! Small world, isn&#8217;t it? Thank you for providing us with such an interesting discussion topic!<\/p>\n<p>And to another reader &#8211; thank you for pointing out the fact that I didn\u2019t explain the really first thing first about this word. So, in order to rectify that oversight from the other day, here it is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> (noun, neuter, plural: <strong>kombinowania<\/strong>, though I don\u2019t think many people would use the plural form) \u2013 and that\u2019s the noun version of <strong>kombinowa\u0107<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>kombinowa\u0107<\/strong> (verb, imperfective; the perfective form would be <strong>wykombinowa\u0107<\/strong>) \u2013 wangle, maneuver, get things sorted out, cheat, scheme, arrange something, etc\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And here are some examples of <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> that should be easy to grasp <em>(even for my very honest American readers, wink wink)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Personally, I have seen tons and tons of <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> in the US. Heck, you want to see <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> as an artform the American way, then go to any jury selection process and see how people <strong>kombinuj\u0105<\/strong> to get out of performing their civic duty.<\/p>\n<p>Another example of <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> is trying to get a reasonably priced sublet apartment in Manhattan. That\u2019s when <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> turns ruthless, even by Polish standards. Anything goes (short of murder, but then again, who knows?) \u2013 lying, cheating, scheming and bribe giving (and a few other things that I shouldn&#8217;t mention on a PG-13 blog).<\/p>\n<p>But I think that basically <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> starts in school, and that\u2019s a proven fact the world over. Proven how? Show me a bunch of 13 or 14 or 15 year olds who are NOT trying to get out of some undesirable school activities by any means necessary and you\u2019ll see a bunch of witless pushovers.<\/p>\n<p>So, actually, I don\u2019t think that the totalitarian regime of the communist days had much to do with the Polish <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> way of life. If you read how those really ancient guys like <strong>Mieszko<\/strong> and <strong>Chrobry<\/strong> got to be princes and kings and otherwise mighty and powerful guys, then it\u2019s obvious that <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> (and this time definitely including murder) has been with us, Poles, for a lot longer than the last 50 or 60 years. In fact, you can even say it&#8217;s kept us alive through the centuries, it&#8217;s helped us survive wars and other calamities.<\/p>\n<p>And what happened if we ended up stuck (no doubt of a result of <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> of other powers) with a witless wonder of a ruler who couldn\u2019t <strong>kombinowa\u0107<\/strong> even if the very survival of his country depended on it and concentrated on building pretty palaces instead? Like <strong>Stanis\u0142aw August Poniatowski<\/strong>, for example? Everybody knows.<\/p>\n<p>So yes, <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong> may be our way of life, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s more prevalent in Poland than in other countries (it seems to me that in Asia and South America it\u2019s physically impossible to get anything done without some very skillful <strong>kombinowanie<\/strong>). We are just a lot more honest about admitting to actually doing it.<\/p>\n<p><em>PS. Do you still see any goofy computer language in my posts on this blog? I am using a new computer and a new internet provider (microwave wireless something something) and I hope there will be no more glitches.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, let\u2019s go back to the issue of kombinowanie for a few more minutes. Turns out that the person who claims that Poles are a cheating, scheming and otherwise dishonest bunch also reads this blog. Oh, hi! Small world, isn&#8217;t it? Thank you for providing us with such an interesting discussion topic! And to another&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/kombinowanie-continued\/\">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":[306831,7453,7482],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","tag-history","tag-kombinowanie","tag-national-characteristics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","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=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}