Everything You ever wanted to know about Poland (part 1)







Everything You ever wanted to know about Poland - (part 8) 
DID YOU KNOW THAT ... ?
By  Robert Strybel,   Warsaw Correspondent



 




 

 
















*    To this day nobody knows the identity of a mysterious caller who phoned Sikorski's London
office of Polish Commander-in-Chief Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski and predicted his death several weeks before his fatal plane crash off Gibraltar in May 1943.

*  Poland had 2 million people in 1340, compared with Spain's 5 million. By 1600, Poland with 7.5 million was catching up to Spain's 8 million, and in 1772
Poland had a population of 11.5 million, 2 million more than Spain. At present both countries' population is approaching 40 million.

*  Annual consumption of all alcoholic beverages in Poland has fallen since the collapse of communism from more than 11 to 8.6 liters per capita (calculated
in terms of pure alcohol). The proportion of beer and wine has increased, with hard liquor (mainly vodka) accounting for only about 50% of the alcohol now being
sold.

*  Poland recently commemorated the 60th anniversary of its war-time education system. During the Nazi occupation period Poland's had occupied Europe's most
extensive clandestine school network, operated at the risk of their lives by some 20,000 teachers.

*  There are an estimated 500,000 people who stutter in Poland, and they even have their own association. At meetings the problems faced by stutterers are
discussed and members are urged not to be ashamed of their disability which had afflicted such greats as Aristotle and Churchill. 



*  The Polish word kolacja (supper) came from the Italian word colazione (breakfast), so somehow its meaning changed in the transition.

*  The average Polish monthly industrial-sector wage is about $435, but many people (teachers, nurses, sales clerks, policemen) earn in the neighborhood of
$200. An inexpensive small car costs $4,500, a pint of inexpensive vodka runs $6.50 and two small hamburgers and a large order of fries is $4.50 at Burger King.

*  A marathon race is held on the anniversary of Father Jerzy Popieluszko's death along his final 110-kilometer (68-mile) road between Bydgoszcz, where he
celebrated his last mass, to W3oclawek where he was killed by the communist secret police in 1984.

*  The New York-based Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences has recently set up an archival information center at its website (www.piasa.org)
to help Polish Americans collect and preserve family data as well as records of Polonian organizations.

 

*  The name Poland comes from Polanie (field-dwellers), an early Slavic tribe that inhabited what is now
Great Poland (the Poznan region). The Polanians eventually conquered neighboring tribes and began consolidating what would eventually become the first Polish
state.

*  Jerzy Buzek, a Lutheran affiliated with the Solidarity bloc (AWS), is Poland's eighth and longest-serving prime minister since the collapse of communism
in 1989. A chemical-engineering professor and former underground Solidarity activist, he has headed the current government since autumn 1997.

*  If you are a professional person of Polish descent, you should look into what the Association of Polish-American Professionals has to offer. Simply visit
website: http://www.informatics.sunysb.edu/apap/

*  Today's Poland has an area of 312,383 square kilometers (120,728 square miles) and a population of 38.6 million, 97% of whom are ethnic Poles. Germans,
Ukrainians, Belarussians, Lithuanians and others account for the remaining 3%.

 

*  62-year-old retired coal-miner Oswald Gorecki of Zabrze has built a model of the Eiffel Tower using
450,000 wooden matches. The spent about three hours a day on the project which took him for years to complete.


 

*  The pioneering research of Polish mathematical logician Jan Lukasiewicz (1878-1956) led to the
development of the pocket calculators so common today.
 
*  If you or someone you know runs a supermarket or deli, be sure to inquire about a variety of imported
Polish jams, pickles, mushrooms, syrups, instant soups, cake mixes, vodka, etc.: Adamba Imports, 585 Meserole St, Brooklyn, NY 11237; phone: [phone];
website: [e-mail] Previously we gave the wrong website.

*  Contrary to Polish-American custom, Mitchell, Walter and Stanley are NOT the linguistic equivalents of the similar-sounding Mieczys3aw, W3adys3aw and
Stanis3aw respectively. Their true equivalents are Miecislaus, Ladislaus and Stanislaus.

*  Basia Dziewanowska, a Polish folklorist who displays, sells and lectures on Polish folk art, is preparing the definitive English-language book on Polish
costumes. It will contain not only pictures and descriptions of folk attire from different parts of Poland but also patterns for those who want to sew their own.
For information contact the author at: 41 Katherine Rd, Watertown, MA 02472; phone: [phone].

*  If we exclude the letters q, v and x (which occur only in a few foreign borrowings) and add nine special accented letters (1, e, 3, ?, a, n, ó, o, Y),
the Polish alphabet comprises 32 letters, rather than the 26 of the English alphabet. (See following entry.)

*  The longest word in the Polish language is Konstantynopolitanczykowianeczka. It means a little girl from Constantinopole, contains the same number of
letters as the whole Polish alphabet (32) and is rarely used for any purpose other than to be cited as the longest Polish word.

*  Betlejem (Bethlehem) is a tiny hamlet near the southeastern Polish town of Jaros3aw with a total population of 50. Nobody knows how its name originated,
but some of the oldest residents think someone once built a wayside shrine to the Holy Family there.

*  An easy and inexpensive way to expose children to their heritage are the 'Polish Kid's Corner' books by Basia Fr1ckiewicz of Buffalo. They contain
customs, tales, folkcrafts (pisanki, wycinanki, etc.), historical trivia, even easy recipes, designed to stimulate the imagination of Pol-Am youngsters. For
information contact: Buffalo Standard Printing, 3620 Harlem Rd, Cheektowaga, NY 14215; phone: [phone].

*  The full name of the popular Polish blood sausage containing groats and chopped variety meats is kiszka kaszana (roughly translatable as 'groaty casing'
or 'encased groats'). In Poland this sausage is widely known today as kaszanka (from the second of the two words), whilst in Polonia kiszka (the first word of the
two) is more prevalent.
 
*  A middle-aged woman, who was once a computer-science teacher but later went into the hotel business,
set up Poland's first women's website. It can be visited at http://www.kobiety.pl

*  In the Poland of yesteryear many musicians were Jewish, hence such common Jewish last names as Kantor (cantor), Singer (singer), Fiedler (fiddler) and
Spielmann (roving minstrel). Often the Yiddish names were translated into Polish (Opiewak, Grajek, Grajkowski, Grajewski) or given Polish spellings (Szpilman).

*  The word 'light' on beer sold in Poland could be a selling point because anything in English is considered trendy. But the same word in Polish, 'lekkie',
would turn beer-lovers away by revealing its lower-than-average alcohol content. Most Polish beer has from 5.5 to 6.2% alcohol; light beers are those with 5.4% or
less.


 
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