Can someone tell me why Polish people are always considered stupid? Where does this origination come from? I heard something about Poland being fooled by countries in past wars? Is there any truth about this?
Perhaps they quadruple-posted a question in GQ? 
Responding to the invading German tanks with horses probably didn’t help any. We’re lovers, not fighters!
Other than that, I have no idea. Copernicus was pretty smart.
I agree with ski, I think it has alot to do with response during the wars they’ve been envolved in.
Ski, you name reminds me:
Q: WHY DO POLISH NAMES END IN SKI?
A: Because they can’t spell toboggan.
couldn’t help it… move along now
This has been asked once or twice before, but I don’t remember if any conclusions were reached. I do know there’s a theory the jokes came about due to the Polish calvary trying to ward off Nazi tanks, but my grandfather remembers hearing Polock jokes in the Depression, so I don’t believe that.
In high school a teacher mentioned that the Poles were the last major ethnic group to ‘invade’ before severe immigration laws were implemented. Since the Poles were the last there wasn’t another group to replace the jokes (which, really, were nothing more than recycled Irish/Swedish/Norwegian/etc. jokes).
I’m sure someone will say I’m wrong. I would like to know, though, if there was a major wave of immigration of a single ethnic group/country between the Poles and, say, Asians in the 1970s. Mexicans, perhaps, but hasn’t there always been a healthy flow from our southern neighbors?
Cavalry, not calvary. One his horses; the other is a hill.
Part Polish myself; please pardon me as I sling off
sigh 
Polish people were considered stupid, I think, because people based their impressions on recent immigrants. They weren’t stupid, just not very good at English. The two languages are very different, it was hard for the immigrants to learn English or to lose the accent (my grandparents all came over from Poland, and until they died seventy years after landing they still spoke very little, very broken English with very thick accents), and few Americans spoke the language or anything related to it. I suspect that Italian immigrants could counts on occasionally running into an American who knew Italian, or maybe French, much more often than a Polack could run into an American who spoke a Slavic language.
In addition, the immigrants would naturally be seen as less clean and organized (It has been suggested, and seems reasonable, that “slob” is derived from “Slav”).
Just for the record, all Polish names don’t end in “-ski” or “-vitch” (which mean, roughly, “son of”). Those names are common, as are all such “son of” names in various languages – “-son” or “-sen” in English and Scandinavian languages, “O’—” in Ireland, “Mac–” in Scotland, “–ian” or “-ion” in Armenia, etc. But I note that “Karsh” (as in the photographer) was Armenian, and his name wasn’t shortened. For that matter, my family name is “Wilk”, and it’s not shortened, either. (A lot of people, upon learning that my ancestry is Polish, ask what the original form of my name was. “Wilk” is it. It means “Wolf”. Maybe I should adopt the first name “Nero”).
I’ve wondered this a bit myself, wondering who that Pole was that screwed it up for the rest of us. 
(My folks are both Polish-born.)
My guess would simply be that Poles, when they emigrated to the States, worked in industrial jobs, didn’t speak very much English, probably looked like meatheads and thus appeared to us 'Merkins as being idiots.
I know it’s simplistic, but I really doubt it has anything to do with wars or Poland’s history. Poland has always been in a strategically crappy location - flat (hard to defend) and between two powerhouses, Germany and Russia. That said, if you go back in Polish history, and for a good, in the form of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, they were the largest empire in Europe. (We’re talking 1500-1600s.)
The dumb Polack joke seems to me to be fairly indigenous to the States. If you go to other countries, they have their own version of these jokes, replaced by whatever nationality they hate. For example, in England, you may get “dumb Scot” jokes. In Hungary, “dumb Gypsy,” etc… In Poland, “dumb Russian/communist” jokes. It needn’t be confined to nationalities. Dumb policement jokes seem to be as common in Eastern Europe as dumb blonde jokes are in the States.
Are blondes dumber than brunettes? Of course not. But the public has perceived them that way for whatever reason (movies, fashion, etc…) Same thing with Poles. It probably does have to do with the immigration patterns, as chique said. With Poles making up a large influx of immigration in industrial cities, their socioeconomic status and linguistic barrier would make them natural candidates for “dumb” jokes.
And there certainly do exist dumb Mexican jokes. (As one in my neighborhood: “What’s dumber than a Polack building a house underwater? A Mexican trying to burn it down.” OK, that’s two stereotypes-in-one there, I guess.) It has to do with cultural adjustment and social status. Immigrants will get picked on because they are perceived as inferior.
Beat me to it, Cal. Incidentally, to expound on the “-ski” and “-wicz” (as it is spelled in Polish) endings. “-ski” doesn’t necessarily mean “son of.” It’s more an adjectival ending. Otherwise, my last name means “son of a peacock,” and I’m unaware of any aviary ancestors. For example “Polski” means “Polish.” “Amerikan” is American, as a noun. “Amerikanski” is American as an adjective. And so forth.
“-Ski” names also exist in other Slavic countries, but they are usually spelled “-ski.” Generally, you will not see a Polish name spelled “-sky.” It doesn’t correspond to the Polish pronunciation of those letters. This is not a Polish spelling. Usually, “-sky” names are Czech, Russian or Ukranian. However, as orthography changes so much upon arrival in America, there may be Polish "-ski"s here. If you see a name that’s “-szky,” that’s a Hungarian name is somebody with a Slavic ancestry. (“Sz” is pronounced as “s” in Hungarian, and “s” is pronounced as “sh” in Hungarian, the opposite of Polish. Therefore, Istvan Szabo [the Academy-award winning film director] is EESHT-vahn SAH-bo.)
The “ich” names are more common in South Slavic names (Croat, Serb, Bosnian,) etc… For example, John Malkovich is Croatian. Milosevic is obviously Serb. “-vich” does roughly mean “son of” and is used throughout the Slavic and German world. “-witz” “-witsch” (German) “-wicz” (Polish) “-vics” (Hungarian) " “-vic” (South Slav.) The English tranliteration doesn’t help in deciding who comes from where.
But I’ve digressed way too much already…
ARSE! Corrections:
“… but they are usually spelled “-sky””
“… there may be Polish **“sky”**s here”
I was just reading this week that Poland, before it was devastated by the Nazis and the commies, was, and in ways still is, saturated by aristocracy and obsessed with status according to birth. With a society crawling with all kinds of major and minor nobility claiming superiority due to their ancestry Poles were bound to attract attention from what I will for convenience call the “left”, the anti-aristocracy revolutionaries that have been around in force and organizing since the mid 1800s. Scorn by the European left for a society obsessed with nobility combined with a country that was run by, and where all positions of power and responsibility are held by, counts and barons and princes etc. rather than people of genuine merit, and one could speculate on the origin of an urban legend on the incompetence and stupidity of Poles.
I’m no expert on Polish history so I really am speculating here. pulkammel’s post is probably closer to the truth than mine.
I would stick to the “new immigrants” explanation. there has been a large polish immigration here (France) before WWII. I gather that polish people were dispised, supposed to be dirty, stupid, etc…at this time, and it seems there was “polish jokes”. When polish people were replaced by new waves of immigrants later (Italians, Portugueses, Arabs…), these new immigrants became the new targets of prejudices/jokes, and assumptions about polish people being (whatever negative comment) dissapeared…
I vote with “last immigrants in the door.”
FTR: The Poles were not guilty of sending massive cavalry charges against German tanks. The Poles did have mounted cavalry (as did the U.S. and many other armies at the time) that was used for swift, cross-country reconnaissance. On one occasion, a Polish cavalry unit was employed as a diversion to cover the retreat of a larger unit. In the Battle of Britain, the Polish pilots attached to the RAF gained a reputation for ferocious, often fool-hardy attacks. It could be the combination of the pilots’ reputations in conjunction with that single rear-guard action that originally led to the stories of Polish cavalry attacking tanks.
If you read any of the Inspector Maigret books by George Simenon written in the 30’s and 40’s ,Polish people often appear as either criminals or as the lowest strata of society living many to a room in the poorest parts of Paris. If this was true or Simenon was just going along with the current prejudices I do not know.
Wasn’t cavalry used successfully against armor at one point in WWII? I seem to recall something about tanks being frozen in in a harsh winter, and being dispatched by mobile horsemen.
As a genealogist, I agree with the the “last in the door” theory. The peak of Polish immigration to the U.S. was 1912, when 175,000 Poles entered. That was decades after the peaks of German, Irish, and English immigration.
Patrick Wright, in his book ‘Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine’ among other things tries to uncover the real story behind this.
There really is no conclusion except that:
A.) There was no pattern of Polish cavalry charges against Nazi amoured units, although there certainly were raids against isolated patrols.
B.) The Polish army acquitted itself quite well, considering it was being attacked by two of the largest armies in Europe (Germany, and the USSR).
C.) The German Army (and Russian too) depended a lot on Horses for towing material, and some scouting purposes (as did the Polish Army). However, this is not cavalry usage.
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