English Conversation Course for Part-Time Students: March 2015

Monday, 23 March 2015

Week 2 (23-29.03.2015) Beards

Beards. Heroic images of the independent, sturdy, and resourceful pioneers, ready, willing and able to do many things. In my opinion, these few words said by an American Psychologist Robert Pellegrini capture the essence of beards perfectly. Right now facial hair has been in the spotlight for some time, and the current trend can be traced back to summer 2013. But where did beards stand before that? Or where do they come from? I’ll try to shed some light on those topics and give you a few interesting facts regarding the cookie dusters ;)

Growing a beard has been a sign of manliness since the dawn of time! Scientists believe that in prehistoric times men had beards for several reasons. First of all, facial hair provided warmth and kept sensitive mouth skin from elements. It also made its wearer more intimidating, through a thicker, stronger looking jaw line. Finally, bushy beards offered some protection and cushion from punches and dull blows to the face. In ancient civilizations, beards were considered a sign of honor and they were only cut as a punishment. This changed around 345 B.C., when Alexander the Great decreed that soldiers could not have beards as he feared his enemies might pull them by their facial hair in a battle and use this to their advantage.

Cavemen

Since that time, beards have been regularly in and out of fashion for centuries. Among Celtic tribes it was popularized by Otto the Great, who used to swear by his beard when he was saying something serious. In the Middle Ages it was a great offence to touch another man’s beard and it often led to a duel. In the 16th century people began experimenting with beards and came up with forked beards or the stiletto beard. In the 19th century, beards began to be popular in America because of the President Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln

Time for some numbers. In America, one third (33%) of all males have facial hair while more than a half (55%) of males worldwide are proud owners of facial hair. In a study of facial hair, women found full bearded men to be 2/3rds as attractive as clean-shaven men. But this is no reason to despair as the same women found bearded men to appear older, more respected, powerful and of a higher status! Bearded men were viewed as 38% less generous, 36% less caring and 51% less cheerful than clean-shaven ones. It would seem that the intimidating factor of the beard keeps the less adventurous women away. Studies have also shown that men grow beards when there are lots of women to choose from and the marriage market is good, but when it’s tough to find a wife, those of lesser resolve tend to shed their crumb catchers, probably wanting to make women feel safer. I say it’s best to find a woman who’ll embrace the beard! Growing a killer beard will weed out all the amateur girlfriends who’ll cramp your style ;) Success-wise, outside of relationships, 98% of Forbes 100 world’s richest men are clean-shaven...but 98% of world’s lumberjacks, warriors and badasses have beards!

Here’s a quick picture guide to the most popular types of beards:

I hope you enjoyed this all-around sneak peek into the world of beards! Here are some questions to help start a discussion.

Guys, what’s your opinion on this subject?
Do you have a beard or ever thought about growing one?
Girls, what do you think about bearded men?
Do you agree with what the studies have shown?

Sources:
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/01/12/beheco.arr214.abstract
http://quirkology.com/USA/Experiment_faces.shtml
http://scicurious.scientopia.org/2011/09/23/friday-weird-science-the-sexiness-of-stubble/http://scicurious.scientopia.org/2011/09/23/friday-weird-science-the-sexiness-of-stubble/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fashion-and-style/11189638/The-real-reason-why-beards-go-in-and-out-of-fashion.html https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090327002901AA0A6kB http://gentlemint.com/tack/46459/

Week 2 (23-29.03.2015) Ponglish.

Ponglish or how Polish language brejka wszystkie rule.

First of all, what is Ponglish? As defined by Wikipedia it is the product of mixing Polish and English language elements within the same speech production. It’s essentially taking an English word or expression and morphing it so it sounds vaguely Polish.

In this article I will be looking at it more broadly.

There are two components of it - stick-togetherness and immersion.

Without the stick-togetherness there is no way to create an entire new vernacular - a community is what allows new words to evolve. People on their own, isolated from their countrymen, simply adapt to speaking English and revert back to pure Polish when going home.

When you are immersed in the culture, using English most of the day, it’s getting natural you find it easier to express certain ideas in English. There might exist a perfectly serviceable Polish equivalent but it doesn’t feel as natural as the one you’re used to using daily. People around you will understand anyway so you take the lazy way out. This is how phrases like “Ide topapnac moja ojsterke.” happen.

“My polish plumber is great!” “That’s redundant.”

Ponglish is mostly associated with Poles living abroad for a good reason. For all the reasons listed above quite a few expressions can be confusing for a new-comer. There are hundreds of words you need to know in order to communicate effectively. They are quite easy to learn as 99% of them stem from an English word.

In the course of doing research I’ve stumbled upon many interesting expressions such as

weź hamer i nafiksuj płot

brejkam rule

dżampnij do szopa

In fact, most examples of Ponglish that I could find on the internet are like this. I find them very funny but they are as true to reality as the old humorous Polish to Czech translations:

wiewiórka - drevni kocur

chwilowo nieobecny - momentalne ne przitomni

gołąb – dachovy zasranec

They are entertaining but no one I know speaks like that.

For example (sorry, BBC doesn’t allow embedding of their videos)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7500077.stm

Drinkowac? For real?

The truth is that while people use quite a few “imported” words like ojsterka (Oyster card), rent (well... rent), rota (roster - work schedule, not a cock) or bizi (busy) very often people will just drop Polish altogether and straight up start speaking English. Usually this switch will occur in the middle of a sentence.

“Moj szef was obnoxious kiedy do mnie mowil” is a much more likely sentence than “Moj szef byl abnokszysowy kiedy do mnie mowil”.

Let me tell you - when you rely on occasionally using English to express yourself, going to Poland and losing the convenience of being able to just assume everyone will understand you in English can be equally eye-opening and frustrating. Speaking of Poland...

We’re all living in America.

OŁ NOŁ indeed, mr Bottle Cap.

source:me

A whole another part of the issue is the use of Ponglish in Poland itself. Poles abroad have their own little language but hardly ever is it displayed anywhere. If you go to a Polish shop everything is written in pure Polish with little to no influence of English. It’s like the shopkeepers want to keep their establishments little enclaves; homes far from home.

Reversely, I feel like in Poland it’s cool to just go ahead and write stuff in English.

I guess Wyprzedaz wouldn’t fit on the sign.

source:http://keychecktranslation.com/

NOWOSC

source:http://keychecktranslation.com/

Those examples don’t bother me that much. Or at all. I mean, they are unapologetically in English. People might think it’s cool and buy more sandwiches.

What the grumpy old man in me dislikes is forcefully polonizing words when there really is no need for it.

Please examine exhibit A:

SANDWICZE I SALATKI

source: me

please excuse the quality; photo taken with a potato.

and exhibit B:

Pajamas

source: me

Those two pictures depict two stages of assimilating a word.

Pizama is, I think, already considered a fully Polish word. It’s pronounced the way it’s written and it follows all the grammar rules. You don’t think of the word pajamas when you say it. No issues there - that’s how we have been acquiring new words - telefon (telephone), budyn (budino) or even nastolatek (translation of teenager) come to mind.

On the other hand there is sandwich, a word that follows all the same grammar rules (e.g. sandwiche, sandwichowi) but is definitely not Polish. We’ve just agreed that we’re going to use it like it was. Maybe in a couple of years it will morph to sandłicz. I would be interested to see if we went through a process like that with all the other words with English origins we use (I can't recall ever seeing "smartphone na abonament" though; it went straight to "smartfon").

There are many words that we take for granted and don’t try to assimilate - fitness and snowboarding come to mind.

But then “mityng” is a word so anything can happen given enough time I suppose.

Last thing I wanted to write about is another way Polish is being infiltrated by English.

Let’s see a show of hands of people who think there is something wrong with this image:

“This comment made our day”. One of my favourite idioms translated directly to Polish. According to google it’s quite commonly used. But it’s only one example that stands out because it’s relatively new. How about “wziac taksowke” (to take a cab) zamiast “pojechac taksowka”. There are many, many more - “scena zbroni”(crime scene) and “personalny trener”(personal trainer) to name a few.

In this post I wrote about more issues than what’s traditionally considered to be Ponglish but I feel they are all related to one another. It’s like I wrote at the beginning - Poland is bombarded by the English culture and we can’t help but incorporate parts of it into our own. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong about that state of affairs, I just wish it was done in more (or at all) considered way.

What do you guys think? Am I just crying wolf and the article would’ve been just as accurate 50 years ago if we had changed English to Russian and 150 years ago with German?

Or is it somewhat different today? Is it because this time it’s voluntary?

Have you got any examples from your life? Are you guilty of using English grammar constructions in everyday conversations or are you trying to be purists?

And, perhaps most importantly, how creepy is that kid in the amniotic bag, right!?

Friday, 20 March 2015

Week 2 (23-29.03.2015) Beer

BEER

In this presentation I would like to share with you some information and facts about my new passion - beer.

Many people associate beer with pale drink widely available in every store. The most popular type of beer in the world is pale lager. Also in Poland lager is the most popular style of beer. It has circa 95% of market share. Commerial examples are: Tyskie, Zywiec, Zubr, Carslberg, Heineken, etc.

But lager is only one from over 100 beer styles in the world. And to be honest - it’s one of the worst.

Why is it so popular?

Because it is very watery, cheap in production and its taste does not deter anybody.

Ingredients of beer:

1. Water

2. Malt

3. Hops

4. Yeasts

5. Herbs and other additional ingredients

Malt - (pol. słód) is a special type of grain prepared for brewing. Most popular grains: barley(jęczmień), wheat(pszenica), rye(żyto). There are many types of each grain. With special preparation, some companies create malts like: chocolate wheat malt, smoked barley malt, roasted malt or even peat smoked malt(similar to whisky malts)

Hop - (pol. chmiel) has multiple functions in beer. First of all, it preserves beer from spoiling. Another thing is its bitterness. Bitterness from hop depends on Alfa-acids included in the hop cone.

To some hop type there are also added fruits: resins, citrus, melon, mango and many other flavours and aromas.

There is a beautiful chart defining most popular hops:

[Hop chart, Source: hopchart.com, Hi res picture]

Yeast - (pol. dożdże) is needed to make fermentation. There are many yeast types. Yeasts can be dry or liquid.

Beer styles

As I said before there are plenty of beer styles in the world.

A very nice graphic shows most of them:

[Beer styles map, Source: shopify.com, Hi res picture]

At the top level beer styles are divided into 2 main groups:

1. Lagers –which fermentate in lower temperatures 8-12*C, get clear profile and no effects from yeasts

2. Ales – which fermentate in higher temperatures 16-24*C, get flavours and aromas from yeast, sometimes fruits/herbs/spicy profile

Another category is color: Dark and Pale styles and ingredients used for brewing.

Want to try something different?

If you would like to taste something different than simply lager or so, I recommend you to try Inida Pale Ale style beer. If you may like dark beers try e.g. dry stout.

In Poland there are over 100 breweries nowadays.

Some of them are huge corporations which take 90% of the market share. There are also mid-size regional breweries. Most interesting are small breweries which do not hesitate to create great beer with the best ingredients. They are craft brewieries.