Now that the snow and frosts have gone, I no longer have to scurry to the warmth of W-wa Śródmieście to await my Jeziorki-bound train. Today I popped by W-wa Ochota for a change, from where I took the photo (above) looking west towards W-wa Zachodnia, which as you can see, is at the top of a rise. This slope was formed to enable the railway line to run under the very centre of Warsaw; W-wa Ochota is not in a tunnel but it is below street level. The line runs into the tunnel 400m east of the platform's end. The tunnel, just over 2km long, ends at W-wa Powiśle station, which like Ochota is exposed to the elements.Incidentally, while looking for the gaps that exist in the linguistic space between English and Polish, I find it quite remarkable that there's no word in Polish for 'commuter'. Getionary gives osoba dojeżdzająca do pracy, and 'commuting' is dojeżdzać [z daleka] do pracy i z pracy. As a language, Polish has been adept at incorporating loanwords into the vocabulary, from dach (German for 'roof') and abażur (from the French, abât-jour, or 'lampshade') to everyday words from English such as biznes and komputer. Yet 'commuter' finds itself without a simple one-word equivalent. Osoba dojeżdzająca do pracy is not a word, but a clunky 11-syllable phrase that explains an everyday word. Could it that commuting is a relative novelty in Poland? Surely not?
Could any reader furnish a better term than osoba dojeżdzająca do pracy? Or suggest a neologism?
And as good a place as any to paste this link to an excellent and thought-provoking article on linguistics in Wall Street Journal.
'Communting' is a good example of how differently users of particular languages perceive the world. Commuting is definitely nothing new in Poland but nobody has so far felt a need for conceiving a single word for it. Making up new words is tempting, although I'm always afraid of neologisms in Polish. They're usually pretentious if not silly (remember 'zwis męski' for a tie?). At the moment I find it really hard to get used to 'celebryta', although 'celebrity' in English sounds all right.
ReplyDeletesingular: dojeżdżająca / dojeżdżający, plural: dojeżdżający, note that the words above are nouns. Whenever I hear it, I know they travel long distances every day, nto a few stops by underground or bus.
ReplyDeleteAnd am I not a commuter, because I commute to school??? That's a discrimination ;-)
celebryta is the next example of how to taint Polish language with borrowings, when it's unnecessary.
I can't stand people who want to show off with their English, when their command of the language leaves a lot to be desired. If they want to do so, they can use only English, speak and write in English, if they're not capable, they should learn and use Polish only in official situations, without lacing their speeches or articles with English terms. This is not how one should gain respect.
When looking for meanings that involve any form of contract it is always worthwhile to look to bible of law - i.e. Black's law dictionary (2nd edition in this example) http://www.blacks.worldfreemansociety.org/2/C/c0230.jpg
ReplyDeleteA commuting ticket is listed as 'A railroad ticket giving the holder the right to travel at a certain rate for a limiter number of trips (or for an unlimited number within a certain period of time) for a less amount than would be paid in the aggregate for so many seperate trips). Since the word commuter itself evolved to mean someone travelling to work [osoba dojeżdzająca do pracy (posiadający billet okresowy)], I see no reason why a Polish word, that did not directly translate as such, could not be construed and could not evolve to mean the same. Hence my suggestion would be okresownik.
Adthelad, the example you cite gives a definition of commutation ticket.
ReplyDeleteAnd can commuting be referred to travelling by one's own car? You call var drivers commuters as well.
Okresownik - I don't know if any Poles would catch on this word-building, I am right now on the phone and just asked my interlocutor what this word can and the answer was "a device which measures if a woman has her period".
or maybe that should be 'okresowiec'.
ReplyDeleteof course people commute by car, bus etc - but the source of the word is nothing to do with cars. So why should it have anything to do with cars in Polish? Get your point though :). Will give it another think, might come up with something else
ReplyDeletesorry that should have been 'why should it have anything to do with a form of travel in Polish'
ReplyDeleteSGH - what about okresowiec - how does your interlocutor like that one? As a matter of interest, does he/she infer that a bilet okresowy is a ticket to be used only when you have a period? LOL!
ReplyDelete'Okresownik' or 'okresowiec' wouldn't work! The first association is what happens to women every month ;) It could be an alternative for 'sanitary napkin' :D
ReplyDeleteokresowiec sounds like something that appears in regular intervals. Another alternative that comes to my minds is that it might be an animal species which spawns in a certain season of a year.
ReplyDeleteokresowy in Polish means referring to a certain period of time, or happening once in a certain period, like przegląd okresowy samochodu, when you have your car serviced once a year.