{"id":693,"date":"2010-02-25T00:57:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T04:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=693"},"modified":"2010-02-25T00:57:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T04:57:00","slug":"two-ears-and-two-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/two-ears-and-two-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Ears and Two Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was writing something yesterday, in Polish, as it happens, and I almost had a nervous breakdown. Why? Plural forms of \u201cnumber + noun\u201d combinations are enough to drive anyone insane, even a native Pole.<\/p>\n<p>And it all looked so simple! I was talking about body parts, more specifically, those body parts that come in twos.<\/p>\n<p>There was little problem with hands and legs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>dwie r\u0119ce<\/strong> \u2013 two hands<\/li>\n<li> <strong>dwie nogi<\/strong> \u2013 two legs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What was enough for a trip to an insane asylum was when I got to those body parts that are neuter in gender (when singular). You know, stuff like eyes and ears.<\/p>\n<p>In English, it\u2019s all so easy: one eye, two eyes. One ear, two ears. And your work here is done.<\/p>\n<p>In Polish, first you have to figure out what kind of ear or eye you\u2019re talking about.<br \/>\nWhen the noun is singular, it\u2019s fairly easy.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>ucho<\/strong> <em>(noun, neuter)<\/em> \u2013 ear: the organ that detects sound, OR: something shaped like an ear, like a handle on a jug, for example.<\/li>\n<li> <strong>oko<\/strong> <em>(noun, neuter)<\/em> \u2013 eye: the organ that detects light, and sends electrical impulses along the optic nerve to the visual and other areas of the brain, OR: something shaped like an eye.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Confused yet? No? OK, you just wait. You will be.<\/p>\n<p>So far so good. Then I tried to use these words as plural nouns. And remember, I was talking about body parts.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>uszy<\/strong> \u2013 ears, when talking about body parts<\/li>\n<li> <strong>oczy<\/strong> \u2013 eyes, when talking about body parts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>but:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>ucha<\/strong> \u2013 ears, when talking about something shaped like an ear<\/li>\n<li> <strong>oka<\/strong> \u2013 eyes, when talking about something shaped like an eye.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OK, that wasn\u2019t too bad, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. And then I tried to say, or rather \u2013 write: two ears and two eyes. <em>(And here, feel free to insert your favorite curse word, or two.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It took me two <strong>s\u0142owniki ortograficzne<\/strong> and quite a bit of googling to get it right. And that was just in the nominative case! I\u2019m not going to touch the other cases with a ten foot pole (or a Hungarian, for that matter).<\/p>\n<p>Ok, so how do we say \u201ctwo ears\u201d when talking about body parts?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Dwoje uszu.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yeah, where did that come from?<\/p>\n<p>And how about \u201ctwo eyes\u201d (body parts again)?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Dwoje oczu.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, my friend, trying to be helpful suggested: <em>\u201cOh, what the heck, just say \u2018a pair of eyes\u2019 and \u2018a pair of ears\u2019.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, easy for you to say.<br \/>\nIs it \u201cpara uszu\u201d or \u201cpara usz\u00f3w\u201d? And is it \u201cpara oczu\u201d or \u201cpara ocz\u00f3w\u201d? Or maybe \u201cpara \u00f3cz\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>I give up. I need to call an expert. Where is <strong>Maciej Malinowski<\/strong> \u2013 <strong>mistrz polskiej ortografii<\/strong>, when you need him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was writing something yesterday, in Polish, as it happens, and I almost had a nervous breakdown. Why? Plural forms of \u201cnumber + noun\u201d combinations are enough to drive anyone insane, even a native Pole. And it all looked so simple! I was talking about body parts, more specifically, those body parts that come in&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/two-ears-and-two-eyes\/\">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":[6,13],"tags":[3538,7373,7485,110,7493],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary","tag-body-parts","tag-declensions","tag-neuter-gender","tag-nouns","tag-numerals"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","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=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}