# Polish insult **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 24, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802 "2009-06-24T04:51:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dada2fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@dada2fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dada2fish)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/1 "2009-06-24T04:51:10Z")
How come there’s been no uproar about the insult to Polish people that was said by Will Ferrells character in the Land of the Lost movie? I don’t know the exact line, but it was something about the intelligence of Polish people versus the T Rex. Would that have been tolerated if he had insulted the black race? I know telling blacks they have nappy hair is a no no, but is it ok to say they are stupid? Are Polish jokes back in style again? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/2 "2009-06-24T04:56:45Z")
Polish jokes never went out of style. Just like ejection seats on helicopters, screen doors on submarines, and astronaut missions to the sun. ---
**Author:** ![emcee2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emcee2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emcee2k)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/3 "2009-06-24T05:19:59Z")
I always thought the “solar powered flashlight” one was stupid. How is that a bad idea? You leave it out in the Sun during the day to charge and use it at night. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/4 "2009-06-24T06:41:39Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > I always thought the “solar powered flashlight” one was stupid. How is that a bad idea? You leave it out in the Sun during the day to charge and use it at night. The idea is that it doesn’t charge…it’s like a solar powered calculator; only working when light is hitting it. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/5 "2009-06-24T12:21:05Z")
Who saw _Land Of the Lost?_ What was the exact line? ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/6 "2009-06-24T13:18:53Z")
Apparently, Polish people are only offended if it is implied they collaborated with the Nazis or that Mimi Bobeck is one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/7 "2009-06-24T13:28:34Z")
> [@dmheat](#): > > How come there’s been no uproar about the insult to Polish people that was said by Will Ferrells character in the Land of the Lost movie? Because relatively few people saw the movie, and because in the U.S., nobody is offended by Polish jokes. It’s also a Will Ferrell movie, which is about the dumbest kind of comedy out there. > [@](#): > > Would that have been tolerated if he had insulted the black race? Is there a law somewhere that _every_ joke about religion, gender or national origin MUST be compared to insults of black people? These jokes are dumb stereotypes and I don’t think anybody takes them literally. There’s no particular cause for people to get outraged about it. > [@](#): > > Are Polish jokes back in style again? When did they go out of style? That said, I’d like to hear what the joke was. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/8 "2009-06-24T13:41:51Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Is there a law somewhere that _every_ joke about religion, gender or national origin MUST be compared to insults of black people? Maybe some sub-rule of Godwin’s Law? ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/9 "2009-06-24T13:44:42Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Because relatively few people saw the movie, and because in the U.S., **nobody is offended by Polish jokes**. It’s also a Will Ferrell movie, which is about the dumbest kind of comedy out there. > > Is there a law somewhere that _every_ joke about religion, gender or national origin MUST be compared to insults of black people? These jokes are dumb stereotypes and I don’t think anybody takes them literally. There’s no particular cause for people to get outraged about it. > > When did they go out of style? > > That said, I’d like to hear what the joke was. bolding mine I’m glad you speak for everybody. Many people are offended by Polish jokes, especially when they are presented in the wrong setting. I don’t think comparing them to black jokes is too far off the mark. The line was something like “Forget the Polish, it’s the T-Rex’s that are the dummies of the world.” Being of Polish descent, I find this a cheap line for this kind of movie. I’m not offended by all things anti-Polish, but there’s a time and a place. Certain movies have all kinds of ethnic slurs that fit the characters or the mood of the film. This was basically a kid movie based off of a kid tv show, and they were stupid enough to put in an ethnic slur? When did they go out of style? I thought in the 60s, but some people apparently still use Archie Bunker as their source of humor. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/10 "2009-06-24T14:37:01Z")
> [@lost4life](#): > > I’m glad you speak for everybody. I speak from experience, and I think I have some Polish ancestry too. The day I’m offended by a joke in a Will Ferrell movie, someone should shoot me. > [@](#): > > The line was something like “Forget the Polish, it’s the T-Rex’s that are the dummies of the world.” This sounds like a joke at the expense of Ferrell’s character: if this is the joke, the audience is laughing at him for saying something so stupid, not because they think Polish people are dumb. > [@](#): > > When did they go out of style? I thought in the 60s, but some people apparently still use Archie Bunker as their source of humor. I went to school a few decades after you and heard all the same jokes. (Comedians may not be telling them, but kids are another story.) The Simpsons also used a couple of them in an episode about ten years ago, although not in a straightforward way - the joke was that a character appeared to be stupid enough to believe the stereotypes were true and passed them off as facts in a school report. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/11 "2009-06-24T15:39:43Z")
> [@lost4life](#): > > When did they go out of style? I thought in the 60s, but some people apparently still use Archie Bunker as their source of humor. I thought the '70s and '80s were the high-point of Polish jokes. I recall a special about Steve Wozniak where before he went to work at Apple, he had some sort of hotline where he told Polish jokes in a mock Polish accent (“When did the polack die drinking milk? When the cow sat down!”) and a program for the Apple II in the '80s called the “Beagle Bag” had a bunch of small programs, including one in which you would type in a name and it would come out in different ways, including Pig Latin and “Polish,” the latter adding a “ski” to the last name (Steve Wozniak would be Steve Wozniakski, for example). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/12 "2009-06-24T16:19:31Z")
As someone whose parents are both Polish-born, I often wondered, growing up, who the dumb Polack was that ruined it for the rest of us. Someone must’ve done something really stupid stepping off that boat at Ellis Island. 😉 Honestly, not a big deal to me, but I hardly think its universal. Growing up, the source of most of my Polish jokes was my dad and other family members so it never occurred to me to be offended by it. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/13 "2009-06-24T16:23:07Z")
The Polish ambassador to the US says he can prove the average Pole is smarter than a T-Rex. Polish operatives are currently searching for a T-Rex to test against. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/14 "2009-06-24T17:00:31Z")
The Will Farrell character is supposed to be an idiot anyway. The gag is not that “ha ha, Polacks are stupid,” but that Farrell is the kind of idiot that takes Polack jokes seriously. The comparison to blacks is stupid, though. Poles are not a race., and no one actually thinks the jokes have any relationship to reality. They are also often interchangable with any number of other ethnicities (up here in Minnesota, it’s Norwegian Jokes, but in some places it will be Irish, Italian, etc.), and _quite_ often, the jokes are primarily circulated by members of the ethnicity themselves. Norwegians up here love Ole and Lena jokes. The cultural connotations are much different than racist jokes. “Polacks” are pretty much an abstraction in those jokes – the word is all but divorced from any real world relationship to perceptions of the actual ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/15 "2009-06-24T18:40:16Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > As someone whose parents are both Polish-born, I often wondered, growing up, who the dumb Polack was that ruined it for the rest of us. Someone must’ve done something really stupid stepping off that boat at Ellis Island. 😉 > > Honestly, not a big deal to me, but I hardly think its universal. Growing up, the source of most of my Polish jokes was my dad and other family members so it never occurred to me to be offended by it. My dad’s side is Polish and it depends on the context to me. I’ve had people honestly tell me Polish jokes because they really think all Polish people are stupid. I had someone (when at work, remoting onto their PC) see my username (first initial, last name-ending-in-ski) say, “Well _that’s_ a FUNNY NAME you got there!” without any lighthearted tone. When those people say Polish jokes, I get mildly annoyed. Anyone else (including my own family), it’s cool\*. - Like the one guy I was helping (who loves telling any kind of joke) who found out my last name, and said, “I swear I will never tell you a Polish joke… okay just one. So this Polish guy–” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/16 "2009-06-24T19:04:28Z")
If I got upset about this, I’d have to feel bad about calling my sister a Polack when I catch her stuffing her purse with lemon bars at the buffet (yes, we’re of Polish descent). > [@labtrash](#): > > The Polish ambassador to the US says he can prove the average Pole is smarter than a T-Rex. > > Polish operatives are currently searching for a T-Rex to test against. Man, are those guys stupid. They’ll never find one if they don’t know it’s actually called a Tyrannosaurus and not “T-Rex”. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/17 "2009-06-24T20:35:45Z")
> [@lost4life](#): > > The line was something like “Forget the Polish, it’s the T-Rex’s that are the dummies of the world.” Goddamn. Some people are just dense. The joke is not that Polish people are stupid. The joke is that Will Ferrell’s character is stupid. I haven’t even seen the movie and that’s obvious to me. ---
**Author:** ![dada2fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@dada2fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dada2fish)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/18 "2009-06-25T06:31:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Goddamn. Some people are just dense. The joke is not that Polish people are stupid. The joke is that Will Ferrell’s character is stupid. I haven’t even seen the movie and that’s obvious to me. Maybe the line should’ve been, “Forget the African-Americans, it’s the T-Rex’s that are the dummies of the world.” Or maybe, “Forget the Mexicans…” since some thinks it’s not ok to insult a race of people, but it’s ok to insult a nationality of people. Does Will Ferrell get a pass because, according to some, it’s just a stupid movie? What are the rules here? What group of people can we insult and who can do the insulting? What insults and jokes are ok and which ones cross the line? I need a handbook here. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/19 "2009-06-25T06:40:06Z")
> [@dmheat](#): > > I need a handbook here. No need to go overboard. A sense of humor would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![dada2fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ccd318/32.png) [@dada2fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dada2fish)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2009, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802/20 "2009-06-25T06:59:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by dmheat > I need a handbook here. > > No need to go overboard. A sense of humor would suffice. But that was my funny line. The rest I’m sincerely curious about. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/polish-insult/500802.md?page=2)