The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#1

Post by colinprince » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 12:44 PM UTC

The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)
aresluna.org

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#2

Post by quibono » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

I believe the fact that Polish uses the Latin alphabet (with a small Slavic twist to express the extra sounds) meant it was much easier for Poland to align itself westward. I think the average Pole is much closer culturally to the Western neighbours than to a Ukrainian or Russian (maybe apart from cuisine).

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#3

Post by q3k » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

quibono wrote: post #2

I believe the fact that Polish uses the Latin alphabet (with a small Slavic twist to express the extra sounds) meant it was much easier for Poland to align itself westward. I think the average Pole is much closer culturally to the Western neighbours than to a Ukrainian or Russian (maybe apart from cuisine).

Polish cuisine is very similar to German cuisine.

(This comment will make a lot of Polish people very upset.)

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#4

Post by 0bytes » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

“Polish uses the English/Latin alphabet” - was it developed back when the US and Italy were allies in ancient Roman times?

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#5

Post by smitty1e » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

As I am fond of saying: "The good news about Open Source is that you've got the source code; the bad news about Open Source is that _you've_ got the source code."

That is, you may well get sucked down a rabbit hole in order to accomplish a simple task.

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#6

Post by ck45 » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #3

quibono wrote: post #2

I believe the fact that Polish uses the Latin alphabet (with a small Slavic twist to express the extra sounds) meant it was much easier for Poland to align itself westward. I think the average Pole is much closer culturally to the Western neighbours than to a Ukrainian or Russian (maybe apart from cuisine).

Polish cuisine is very similar to German cuisine. (This comment will make a lot of Polish people very upset.)

Lots of common main ingredients like potatoes, beets, cabbage, and sausages. It could also have a different reason, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_eastern_territories_of_...

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#7

Post by TRiG_Ireland » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

The linguistic, historical, and cultural information is so fascinating, and really well explained.

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#8

Post by gdwatson » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

0bytes wrote: post #4

“Polish uses the English/Latin alphabet” - was it developed back when the US and Italy were allies in ancient Roman times?

I stumbled over that too, but it makes sense when you finish the article. The ancient Romans didn’t build a lot of keyboards.

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#9

Post by gedy » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

quibono wrote: post #2

I believe the fact that Polish uses the Latin alphabet (with a small Slavic twist to express the extra sounds) meant it was much easier for Poland to align itself westward. I think the average Pole is much closer culturally to the Western neighbours than to a Ukrainian or Russian (maybe apart from cuisine).

Being Catholic helps too

Re: The curious case of the disappearing Polish S (2015)

#10

Post by nashashmi » Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

This was a fun read. Here is the tl;dr version:

> Instead of blindly and greedily blocking Ctrl S, we could block Ctrl S only if Alt key was not pressed.

Ctrl alt s was the keyboard shortcut for the polish S. Ctrl s was blocked to improve saving. And this also blocked ctrl alt s too.