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General discussion (archive)Poland Vs The United States(35 posts)(35 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 26, 2009
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ceemdee: Actually I think this is the original ad...

Sir, you win.
Posted August 26, 2009
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cogadh: Even if that is the case, what possible reason could they have for editing the guy out? Changing the ad at all just seems unnecessary and does leave a bit of a racist flavor, even if that was not the intention.

There's generally a lot of racism and racist tendencies in Eastern European countries. Russia is especially notorious for it, where there's a lot of racist murders each year, et.c. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Russia ). So the guys at Microsoft Poland probably felt it would appeal more to their customers if the middle guy was white.
Posted August 26, 2009
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ceemdee: Actually I think this is the original ad...

You are the new official unofficial GOG graphics master.
Posted August 26, 2009
The news has made it to slashdot: http://idle.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/2015205/Microsoft-Poland-Photoshops-Black-Guy-To-White-One
The comments point out that there is a MacBook in the picture, (with the Apple logo removed of course) and the woman's computer monitor isn't plugged into anything.
The article links to a similar incident in Canada a couple of months ago:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/06/10/city-digitally-adds-black-guy-to-fun-guide-cover-to-make-it-more-inclusive.aspx
Will the madness never end?
Post edited August 26, 2009 by tor
Posted August 26, 2009
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JudasIscariot: For the most part it's about the same as English except when trying to translate words like "empower". Sometimes Polish can be LESS verbose than English but it depends whether we are talking about conversational or technical standpoints.
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cioran: I was kind of curious about that too. It does seem a tad long. At least versus English and French. Then again, English and French both seem long compared to Japanese (which is really quite brilliant when it comes to fitting the most content on a page, at least of any of the languages I'm aware of - sadly I don't know that many; the ones I know, I don't know very well).
Do you retain the subject in the imperative (a sentence that's commanding someone to do something)? In English and the romance languages, you generally don't. I think you do in German (it's inverted though e.g. with the pronoun "sie", if I'm not mistaken like "Kommen sie herein" vs. "Come in" - no "you" in the English command). I'm figuring that's one of the "extra" words and a possessive marker is the other (along with the usual articles)?
Also, no abbreviations? I find that rather peculiar. Or am I missing something? Is it considered impolite in Polish business writing?
Apologies if this is annoying. I recognize not everyone finds grammar and linguistics interesting.

Polish tends to use some of the same rules as English does. For example, just like English, it has an "implied you" ("Come in" translates to "Wchodz"). There is a word for "you" as in "you did this" (it is "Ty") but it is considered very impolite to use it amongst starngers and even amongst friends at times, at least that is my experience. YMMV or for the Europeans YKMV (Your kilometerage May Vary).
On the abbreviations, it depends on what you are abbreviating. I don't know wnough about Polish business writing but I know that when I am looking at job postings on the net I will see positions like "dyrektor ds terminali", that means "Director of ...." the "ds" is an abbreviation "do spraw" (concerning things if we are talking about business..). Also, Polish doesn't have contractions (haven't, didn't, etc.).
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General discussion (archive)Poland Vs The United States(35 posts)(35 posts)
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