Wino marki wino

Meaning:

Lit. “the Wine brand of wine” meant ironically. The expression comes from this product that has been the weapon of choice of winos in communist Poland. After the collapse of the system, various brands of fruit wine remained their favourites and quite often also source of first serious hangovers for Polish teenagers. The original “brand” is no longer available but hundreds of local variants have blossomed in the meantime, some of them gaining a cult following. What they have in common is: a) all being produced out of fruits, mainly apples b) alcohol volume of around 18% c) contain high levels of sulphur.

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Wyjść po angielsku

Meaning:

Lit. “to leave in an English manner/take an English leave”. Which is used to describe people leaving a party without saying a proper “goodbye” and in case of old-fashioned folk, drinking a goodbye vodka shot (“strzemienny”). Such a behaviour is not well liked by partygoers, but in every group of good friends there is at least one who prefers to vanish in the night while the others are busy dancing, drinking or talking. Mention this to a German and he or she will reply: “das ist doch polnischer Abgang” as in Germany you call this a Polish manner. There are probably more variants in other countries.

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Dupowłaz

Meaning:

Lit. “asscrawler” – as in crawling into other’s ass. In Polish this does not denote any sexual act, instead describing a sycophant who will tell and do whatever it takes to win another person’s sympathy. This is especially often used when talking about work and a colleague who asks “how high?” when told to jump by the boss. In general, this noun is used to condemn people submitting to an authority, be it the state, company or school. An ass-kisser.

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Wąchać kwiatki od spodu

Meaning:

Lit. “to smell flowers from underneath” which is an impolite (and, perhaps, funny) way to say that a person is dead. It’s one of an array of similar expressions in Polish as, for instance, “kopnąć w kalendarz“, which you should not use in a conversation with a relative of the deceased, unless they did not have any respect for him/her.

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Na “odwal się”

Meaning:

Lit. “as if saying bugger off”. This is what expression a fellow Polish speaker will use when describing a work being delivered in a slapdash fashion, only to have it completed, as opposed to “jak Pan Bóg przykazał“.  She or he will use it to refer to a poor homework by a child or a rushed major construction enterprise alike, if not done diligently.

This expression definitely has its roots in the times of the socialism/communism between 1946 and 1989 when work in state-owned companies or institutions was guaranteed for everyone, monopolies ruled almost every sector and, as a consequence, most of what the country produced was of a low quality. Every manager risked to be told to “odwal się” by another employee, if they inquired about the quality of the work they were doing. Hence the saying, used widely even now.

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