Extensive research, which bore an uncanny but misleading similarity to sitting in a pub talking nonsense, has enabled me to put together this startlingly accurate snapshot of the Polish nation this week.
I’m guessing most people out there are familiar with the “If the world was a village with 100 people” meme, so I won’t bother explaining it, or coming up with a lame excuse for stealing the idea.
If I’m not stopped I may do it again.
About the last one, I am indeed amused by the situation :> I’m in Ireland myself (west coast), and everyone is waiting for snow now. Which reminds me how 2 years ago I was watching weather forecast here, and minus 2 degrees was described as “severe frost”. Huh?
Commenting on the last item as well. Ten years ago (January 1999) the mayor of Toronto requested the help of the army to help dig out the city from a mountain of snow. We were the laughing stocks of the entire country….still are, for that matter.
http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/01/13/
I’m certainly in the group of 80 laughing at Britain’s 20 cm snow pralysis! ;-)
Yeah, handball, baby!:)
By the way, good job.
I wonder… what would you think about Peruvians? And what if Peru was 100 people? Most likely, 99 would be talking about our lousy football, just as if tomorrow our national team could win the World Cup.
All the best!
last one…LOL
h ttp://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/1,80277,6225638,Internauci_relacjonuja_z_Londynu__Szkoly_zamkniete_.html
HAHA
h ttp://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/Wiadomosci/51,80277,6225638.html?i=11
That handball team, I supported them all along, honest!
Bye bye; Małysz, Otylia, football, Kubica, that rally driving geezer, the fencers……
Quite clearly:
100 people are seeing the doctor, queueing, or ill in bed.
70 of those are watching handball on the telly in the waiting room, pharmacy or at home, where becoming a handball expert is not that complicated (I always thought handball was played by those who were no good at anything else).
The 10 awaiting corruption charges are at the doctors paying for sick notes or already ’sick’ at home so they can delay the trial as long as possible.
20 who think there was a gold and the 10 saying winter will be easier or harder are among those at the doctors (could be eye doctors/ opticians) or chemists sorting out their eyesight/ glasses, or in bed sick with delirium.
The 80 laughing at the 20cm snow ‘UK close down’ obviously have that ever so specific Polish sense of humor which takes no account of the fact that the UK is not used to heavy snow (see Eddie the Eagle), most residents have never seen a snow tyre, do not have fleets of snow ploughs or extra supplies of grit etc for something that might or might not turn up once in a blue moon (with snow coming down faster than it can be cleared) and who have spent the last few years busy preparing for global warming.
The last time I had a proper laugh at winter incompetence was about 10 years ago on one of my trips through Katowice when I was dodging articulated lorries and all manner of other road users as they slid backwards towards me down those undulating flyovers which were iced over. Somehow my snow tyres held and I made my solitary way through the mayhem :)
Hilarious! I was laughing my ars off for what’s going on in Dublin.
Actually
25 are medical personel
25 are waiting to see medical personal
25 are waiting in line at the pharmacy
25 are out on sick leave
[...] [Polandian] If Poland was 100 people [...]
If Poland was 100 people:
99.9999999 would be white Roman Catholics
0.0000001 would be every other colour and faith in the world.
Oooooooooooooooh, I’m almost tempted to bite, but I won’t :)
Small, but notable grammatical error:
It’s “If … were” not “If … was.”
ad: Sounds like material for a Venn diagram to me. Hmmm…
It’s true Poles aren’t nearly as winter-proof as they like to think they are, seems every time I’ve watched the news in the past couple of months it’s been full of people (usually drivers) complaining about being overwhelmed by snow.
scatts: I’m not sure you’ve grasped the concept of 100, but good point anyway.
b: Tosh and poppycock. Next time I hear somebody say “Do pass my umbrella old man, what if it were to rain?” I’ll believe you.
Do I have to have three things then? Do tell.
er…I think the point scatts is that you don’t get 0.0000001 of a person. Whole numbers of people is the game we’re playing, I think :).
I know tons of people who say ‘what if it were to rain?’ just so they can be smug about using the subjunctive. (and it’s ‘old boy’, not ‘old man’. You need to work on your ‘posh old boy’ vocab. I’ll have to start setting homework.)
I’m not posh and I would always say “What if it were to rain” if I were going for the long version. Otherwise I’d say “What if it rains?”. Sorry!
Whole people are not statistically possible when you condense the ethnic diversity of 40 million Poles down to 100. Sorry. One person not being white Catholic would be a gross overestimation. :)
Okay, here’s another one, for Michael;
10 – would be able to control their vehicles
90 – would not.
scatts: Yes you would have to, but my point is you never would go for the long version.
I was going to work out exactly how much 0.0000001 of a person would be (a toenail perhaps) but then I got bored and realised it wasn’t funny enough to be worth the effort.
pinolona: Dammit, the poor upbringing what I had lets me down again.
Scatts,
I will explain you why Poles are in their majority white.
Because we didn’t rob, plunder, murder, rape, steal and in any other way exploit people with other skin colour and race.
Next, we didn’t have to take some of them as our slave, servant or lover to our country and even then years passed talking about them with contempt “Paki” or “bamboo”!!!
Ah yes, the great Polish imperial innocence. Of course, had you had the opportunity to rob, plunder, murder etc., inherent Polish morality would have prevented you from doing so I’m sure.
Truth spike/thorn the eyes!
Jamie,
…only my inherent problems with English tenses did prevent me from answering your pointed questions in most incoherent manner. Shame on you, depraved Brit, how dare you using your native language skills in warfare – it’s profoundly unfair!
Let’s murder a few sentences. That will show ‘em!
Jubal: Lucky escape for me then.
¨Because we didn’t rob, plunder, murder, rape, steal and in any other way exploit people with other skin colour and race.
Next, we didn’t have to take some of them as our slave, servant or lover to our country and even then years passed talking about them with contempt “Paki” or “bamboo”!!!¨
You did all those things to Lithuanians, Belarusians and Ukrainians instead. No need for the Poles to cross the seas to plunder the locals and try to kill their culture.
Excuse me?! Support it with facts, please.
[...] [Comments for Polandian] Comment on If Poland was 100 people by FK [...]
richardlith, I am afraid, that you should get your facts right first, and then we can start discussing history and wrongdoings of all nations.
There are nasty things in Polish history, but I don’t really think you would like to go into comparisons with the glorious exploits in history of England and the British Empire.
Because, you know, /chorus/ we don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do… We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too! We’ve fought the Brits before…
My ex-gf who was Lithuanian could attest to the family stories of how brutally Poles treated ethnic Lithuanians when we ‘liberated’ (read: annexed) Vilnius in 1920 which in the end undermined the existence of their short-lived republic. Her own great-grandfather was tortured and beaten to death by Polish troops. And I don’t think “oh well the Soviets wouldve just taken it over eventually” is a justification for our own atrocities on those lands although indeed those times were just a bit chaotic. As far as Ukrainians go, for centuries they were relegated to poor farmer boy status in the regions particularly arond Lwow (Lviv) while the city/merchant/szlachta classes were Polish – a very similar societal situation to Silesian and Pomeranian regions where the Poles played the role of poor farmer boy and Germans were the city folk.
btw that was @ Jubal in defense of richardlillith’s post :^)
Great Post!
I hate the way Poles correct native English speakers. Of course it could be “If…were….”, but this is considered archaic and very seldom used.
Queuing in the chemist’s LMFAO
Sad, but true…
Happened to me once. I read a press release in English from a small Polish company and sent them an e-mail, telling them they made such and such mistakes (I don’t even think I was actually correct, my English was much worse back then). They replied with saying that the press release was written by a native speaker. Of course, most Polish companies would claim as much when replying to some random jerk from the Net. Then it turned out it was indeed written by a native speaker. It taught me not to mind any linguistic mistakes at all, not even “poszłem”.