Bits of Polish

Why not start your week with enriching your Polish vocabulary with a handful of interesting expressions? I’ve chosen a couple of common idioms containing names of birds, so that at the same time you can learn what some birds are called.

niebieski ptak – a blue bird
A careless, irresponsible bum who idles around instead of getting some useful work done, like all decent people do.

z lotu ptaka – from a bird’s flight
From a bird’s eye view, from above.

pisać / bazgrać jak kura pazurem – to write / scribble like a hen with its claw
A not-so-nice way of commenting on someone’s calligraphy. Because hens aren’t known for their hand- (claw?) writing skills.

kura domowa – a home hen
This basically means a housewife, but in a rather pejorative sense – a woman who spends all her time caring for home and children and doesn’t know much about the world. Many women would probably take offence at being called that.

kura znosząca złote jaja – a hen laying golden eggs
This is how you can call something, for example a business, that’s very profitable.

gapić się jak sroka w gnat – to stare like a magpie at a bone
That’s what you do when you just stare at something thoughtlessly. Do magpies really stare at bones? I have no idea.

trzymać dwie sroki za ogon – to hold two magpies’ tails
To have too many irons in the fire. It implies that multitasking is bound to be a failure, because, well, go and try catch two magpies by their tales…

rządzić się jak szara gęś / szarogęsić się – to boss around like a grey goose
That’s what you do when you think you’re the most important person in the world and expect everyone to do your bidding, even though in fact you’re just a rude asshole.
Szarogęsić się is an interesting verb. It comes from szara gęś – a grey goose – and means the same as rządzić się jak szara gęś. So you could say it’s a whole idiom neatly packaged in one word… Something like "greygoosing," even though it sounds horrible in English.

kaczka dziennikarska – a journalistic duck
A misleading newspaper story. In English it’s called a canard, which comes from the French for duck as well.

puszczać kaczki – to let out the ducks
To skip stones on the water.