Just the other day I was asked what (if any) Polish equivalents of these words would be, and frankly, I didn’t have a clue.
All the Poles I know refer to ice tea as “ice tea” and news is “news”, or sometimes “nius”. I checked with a couple of dictionaries, and asked a couple of people, and one of those people referred me to “Poradnik Językowy” vol. 5. A practical Polish language handbook, of sorts, published by PWN. In this book a bunch of really smart people (though not as smart as Profesor Miodek, I think) dispense language advice. It’s a compilation of questions asked by ordinary Polish speakers with answers by the very highly educated Polish language experts.
I’m not sure whether I like this book or not. It’s useful, that’s a fact, but some of those very smart people are so traditional and orthodox when it comes to our beautiful language that sometimes it’s hard to take their learned opinion seriously.
But, to my surprise, there was an entry on “ice tea” in there (page 331) and “news” (page 335).
First of all, there’s this misconception in Poland that ice tea is just hot tea that got cold, but that’s OK, I guess. Not everyone in Poland needs to make ice tea the way I make it. The real issue seems not how to make it, but what to call it. There’s “kawa mrożona” (ice coffee) in Poland already, so what’s wrong with “herbata mrożona”? Absolutely nothing, apart from the fact that it sounds a little goofy. And besides, most Poles I know refer to this beverage as “ice tea” anyway.
The author of the entry on “ice tea” agreed that “herbata mrożona” would be an OK Polish “Polish” equivalent and left it at that.
The “news” bit was a little more complicated. Apparently, it’s a Polish word these days, and it’s even been assigned a gender – masculine, to be exact. In plural it’s “newsy”. The author also advocates that the Polish spelling of the word should be “nius”. Because since we already have “mejl”, we might as well have “nius.”
See? That was easy!
Oh, and don’t forget, “news” and “newsy” decline like any other normal Polish noun would. So you’d say “Przeczytałam (I read) ciekawego (interesting) newsa,” if you’re talking about just one bit of news.
