Lit. “to have a snake in the pocket” which refers to somebody being very thrifty, or even, stingy. Poles readily apply this to inhabitants of my hometown Kraków who are widely known to save every penny they can. And so, such a person is under no circumstances willing to put hand in their pocket as if the said reptilian was sitting there waiting to bite them.
Lit. “that’s where the dog lies buried” which seems to have been adopted from German and is present in multiple other, not only slavic or germanic languages. It’s used to point at the cause or the focal point of whatever is being discussed. Quite often one of people in a discussion jumps in with this expression as soon as he or she hears about whatever seems to be a key factor. It therefore also serves to stress one’s own opinion.
Lit. “a human is not a camel and needs to (have a) drink”. It’s a polite and humorous way of complying to a suggestion of alcohol consumption. At times it might sound a bit like surrendering to a devil’s voice, even after you’ve done your best to oppose it and stay sober. This sentence usually precedes a serious drinking bout resulting in a really bad hangover and remorse. It’s also quite often used as a wedding party toast.
The perfidious and funny part of the saying is that camels, being reasonable and responsible animals, don’t drink alcohol, just water. However, “wódka” being a diminutive form of “woda” (water) brings them shockingly closer to being an animal patron of alcoholics.
Lit. “a cat’s music”, which can be used either to describe a very noisy and dissonant (or simply: poor) music or a noise that irritates you. You can hear/read it quite often to describe groups of people making noise not to let someone else speak or partygoers singing and breaking glasses on the streets.
The expression obviously stems from caterwaul waking Polish people at night, especially in March. Its origin being the same as that of German “Katzenjammer”, this Polish expression is not used to describe a hangover.
Lit. “are you asking a boar if it shits in the woods”? Which sounds ridiculous but, at the same time, quite funny. It is used to agree to a proposal and stress your full commitment and that the choice is obvious. The verb “shits” makes the expression coarse and not suitable for any official conversation. But it is perfect for accepting a proposal from a buddy to have a few beers on a Friday evening.
You may wonder why some of the examples below include the question mark while some don’t. Well, it’s because syntax in Polish does not define if a sentence is a question or a statement. It’s the intonation or the magical word “czy” (“if”), which in this case is only an element of the subordinate sentence. So, “pytasz dzika, czy sra w lesie” will be a question with the question mark and a statement without it.
