No, I am not talking here about the butchered combination of Polish and English that some of my fellow countrymen, who spent more than two months abroad, are so fond of.
I’m talking about the signs I saw at one of the largest bookstores in Gdańsk. I went to Dom Książki (literally: dom = house, książka = book) in Wrzeszcz to look for some Polish guidebooks (I hate going places without reading a guidebook first). But since I like bookstores and books in general, I thought I might as well browse a little.
And it was then that a big sign caught my attention. “Audiobooki” it said on it. Hmmm… Interesting. A normal printed book is “książka” in Polish, but an audiobook is “audiobook”? I asked one of the ladies working there why it was so. She didn’t really know, she said. She added that while some people say “książki dźwiękowe”, “audiobooki” seems to be a much more popular (and preferred) term. The lady went on to explain that it’s the same with “e-booki” (e-books).
Just stick a Polish plural ending at the end of an English word, and voila, your work here is done.
There are many such “new” Ponglish words in common Polish use these days. Billboards advertise not new “mieszkania” (apartments) but “apartamenty”. Restaurants serve “lunche” (lunches), and lowly “sklepy” have morphed into “shopy”. And of course, all those words are pronounced the Polish way by combining some English sounds and some Polish, or simply – by how people see fit.
These are just the examples I noticed yesterday. I’m sure there’s many, many more. I understand this trend towards appearing worldly and sophisticated, and English is indeed THE language of global communication. But what’s wrong with a Polish equivalent if it’s available? For my part, “sklep” is still “sklep” and real estate firms can advertise all the “apartamenty” they want. To me, they’re still “mieszkania.”
We’ll talk about hard-core Ponglish another time. 
And what is your opinion on incorporating foreign words into Polish, especially if a Polish equivalent is readily available?
