My latest compilation from Culture.pl includes an article by Patryk Zakrewski (with translations by MW) titled Kapewu? A Guide to Old Polish Slang. Here are some excerpts.
Antek
In Kraków, he was called an ‘ancymon’, while in Lembryczek (pre-war slang for the city of Lviv), a street urchin was a ‘baciar’ (from the Hungarian ‘betyár’ – a hoodlum or goon). A baciar spoke bałak, a Lvovian slang. Elsewhere in Galicia, such rascals and scoundrels were called, in the plural, ‘sztrabancle’ (from the German ‘strabanzen’ – to loiter), and in Poznań, they went under the names of ‘szczuny’, ‘zyndry’ or ‘ejbry’. There were, of course, many other similar terms, because Poland was also full of andrusy and wisusy.
In Warsaw, and especially in its riverside neighbourhoods of Powiśle and Czerniaków, a street urchin was simply an ‘antek’ – which is also a common diminutive of the name Antoni. The satirical newspaper Trubadur Warszawy (Warsaw’s Troubadour) explained the term this way in the year 1927:
I’m Antek. I can’t swear that it was the name I was given during baptism, but here, near the Wisła, the custom is that even if you’re called Hipolit, Konstanty or – imagine it – Maurycy, people’ll still call you Antek anyway. Trans. MW
Unfortunately, sometimes a kind-hearted antek would grow up to become a majcher- and szpadryna-carrying hooligan (the terms for a knife and brass knuckles, respectively). If he lived in Lviv, he would have been called a ‘chachar’. And if a chachar wants to give you bałabuchy, or zamalować kłapacz (both terms for beating you up), you should know that there is nothing pleasant coming. It could lead to a fest magulanka (a mighty fight). But let’s set aside violence and focus on etymology instead.
‘Chachar’, just like ‘baciar’, is Hungarian in origin. It spread all over the southern voivodeships of Poland, taking on a different meaning in each region. In Kraków, and in the east of the Lesser Poland region in general, chachars were simply street urchins. The article Śląskie Wyzwiska (Silesian Invectives), published in Kłosy in 1934, states that:
A ‘chachar’, or an unemployed person in general, received their name only recently; back in the day, a chachar was mostly a lazybones avoiding work. Trans. MW
Becja
At the beginning of the 20th century, it was common for an antek to become a bek. Stefan Okrzeja was one, and so were Józef Piłsudski and later Prime Minister Walery Sławek… In underground slang, ‘bek’ was a Polish Socialist Party (PPS) fighter.
A woman fighter, such as Faustyna Morzycka or Wanda Krahelska, was called a ‘beczka’ (like the Polish word for barrel), and a group of beki (the plural of bek) were ‘becja’. Members of the PPS, whether they were beki or agitaje (agitators), were called ‘pepesiacy’ or ‘papuasi’. The latter variant, stemming from the Polish name for the inhabitants of the island of Papua, was particularly in vogue among PPS’s political enemies.
Beki were armed with bronki (Browning pistols; the term is similar to Bronek, a diminutive for the name Bronisław) and participated in eksy, or expropriations of Russian property in the name of the revolutionary cause. They also performed prowoki and szpiki, or committed assassinations of prowokatorzy (instigators) and szpiedzy (spies).
The conspirators were particularly fond of abbreviations: ‘dru’ was an underground printing shop (from Polish ‘drukarnia’) and ‘gra’ was a good trafficking spot (from Polish ‘granica’ – the border). Szwarc (contraband), which included flugblaty (leaflets) and bibuła (books; literally, blotting paper), was usually smuggled by dromaderki (female smugglers of illegal publications, called this after the dromedary camel).
Many beki and beczki suffered setbacks during their operations. After getting caught by a fijoł (a gendarme), a rewirus or a stójkus (both meant ‘cop’), they ended up in ul (jail or prison; literally, a beehive) and were then transported to cytla (Warsaw’s Citadel) or białe niedźwiedzie (Siberia; literally, white bears). As you can see, prison terminology was quite elaborate in this period.
Some of the most original terms include ‘duma’ (stemming from the name for the Russian Parliament, which was created in 1906 – but meaning also ‘pride’ in Polish) and ‘skałon’ (created on the basis of the General-Governor responsible for the bloody repressions which followed the 1905 revolution). Both of these words designated prison toilets.
Bradziażić
A birbant, a bon vivant, or a bibosz – somebody leading a riotous life, never one to avoid fun – was known to bradziażyć. In Old Polish, you could similarly say that such a person bisurmani się or lampartuje (all terms for partying). He would flanerować (roam) from pub to pub, often tempted to gamble. This usually made it easy for him to wyprztykać się z floty (run out of money)… but there’s no glik (luck) without risk!
As a result of bradziażenie, it’s easy to become a bradziaga. This word comes from Russian and designates a vagrant or globetrotter. Such a free-floating person was known in Lviv as a ‘makabunda’ (a distorted form of ‘vagabond’). In Silesia, a ragamuffin was a ‘haderlok’ or a ‘szlapikorc’, while in Poznań, he would be called a ‘łatynda’, ‘opypłus’ or ‘szuszwol’.
‘Menel’, a word for a ‘bum’, still used in all parts of Poland, has an interesting etymology. In one of his pre-war columns, Stefan Wiechecki described this dialogue, reportedly overheard in a courtroom:
‘He called me a “menelik”…’
‘But there’s nothing offensive about that. Menelik is the name of one of the kings of Abyssinia’, replied the judge.
‘Your Honour, it’s possible that it designates a king in Abyssinia, but here, in Szmulowizna, it’s something altogether different.’
The exotic dress of the Emperor of Ethiopia fascinated the Warsaw populace to such an extent that peculiarly dressed people began to be called by his name. Menelik II’s honourific was negus negesti (king of kings), and as a result, the slang term ‘nygus’ (loafer, good-for-nothing) became part of the Polish language.
The people of Warsaw also insulted each other (for no discernible reason) with the use of names such as kopernik and gambeta. While the former referred, of course, to the famed Polish astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, Leon Gambetta was a French statesman during the Second French Empire and the Third French Empire periods.
…
Jak bonie dydy
‘Jak bonie dydy’, ‘jak bum cyk-cyk’, ‘jak pragnę zdrowia’, ‘jak pragnę podskoczyć’, ‘jak babcię drypcie’ and ‘jak Bozię kocham’ don’t always make sense, but they all mean something like ‘scout’s honour’, ‘on my mother’s life’, or ‘I swear to God’. Each of these phrases is a synonym for the phrase ‘na słowo honoru’ (you have my word).
But such obiecanki cacanki (empty promises) can be misleading. What if the other person bierze nas pod pic (tries to hustle us) or wstawia farmazon (tries to pull one over on us; the Polish phrase stems from Russian ‘farmazirowat’’, which means to pretend or simulate)?
We all know someone who will swear pod chajrem (literally, risking a curse) that they will do something na zicher (for sure), but in the end, they’re sure to only ever fulfil that promise ‘na świętego Dygdy, co go nie ma nigdy’ – which would mean something along the same lines as ‘when the Cubs win the World Series’ did a couple of years ago.
Kapewu?
Questions like ‘Kapewu?’ can sometimes still be heard in Poland, but today, the phrase is mostly associated with the slang of the heroes of cult children’s TV series from the 1970s like Podróż za Jeden Uśmiech (A Trip for One Smile) and Stawiam na Tolka Banana (My Bet’s on Tolek Banan). Today, you’re more likely to be asked questions like ‘kumasz?’, ‘czaisz?’ ‘jarzysz?’, ‘kminisz?’ or ‘kapujesz?’. They all mean ‘do you get it?’ – and the last of them can teach us something about the etymology of kapewu.
The Polish ‘kapować’ probably came from the German capiren or Italian capire, meaning ‘to understand’. Forms of the latter, like ‘capito’ and ‘capisce’, are sometimes still present in Polish slang. For example, the rapper Włodi rhymed on the Molesta group’s debut album: ‘Źli i łysi to klima, kapiszi?’ (The bad and the bald are my squad, understood?).
Kapewu is a humorous, quasi-French form of the Polish ‘kapować’, created as analogous to phrases like ‘parlez-vous’ and ‘comprenez-vous’. Other examples of such French stylisation are two phrases present in an old Warsaw local dialect: ‘iść de pache’ (walk hand in hand) and ‘przepraszam za pardą’ (I’m sorry for interrupting or bothering you).
In the above-quoted book about schoolchildren’s slang from the late 1930s, Ignacy Schreiber lists several words for joy and approval. These include words like ‘byczo’, ‘morowo’, klawo’, but also a mysterious exclamation: ‘sikalafą!’. This stemmed from the French ‘si qu’a la font’, which is itself a slang term which means ‘that’s the way it goes’ or ‘that’s life’ (I’m tempted to write here: ‘that’s c’est la vie’ to preserve the spirit of other French loans in Polish slang).
But Poles willing to admit that something was cool had a broader repertoire: szafa gra (literally, the jukebox’s on), gra gitara (literally, the guitar plays), gites bomba and cymes pikes.
Far Outliers 