Talk:Tadeusz Sendzimir

Early life
The translation of Gimnazjum Klasyczny to 'Classical Gymnasium' is incorrect; this is a literal translation for what should be something along the lines of "Further Education college of classical arts and sciences". Gregmal (talk) 21:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Polish-American or not
The archived conversation on Polish Americans vs. American of Polish descent has made an incorrect conclusion that both are the same. An American of Polish descent was born in the US with Polish ancestry. This is quite clearly different to someone who was born in Poland and was brought up there. Gregmal (talk) 21:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Possible error in Quotation
The quote attributed to Sendzimir does not seem correct.

"I have been carrying family and the only my capital - a new method of zinc-plating to another coast of the Pacific"

It seems a very unlikely second language use of English.

I would think that it should read "and my only capital" instead.

Is there any way to find where this was first used and in what language? Is it in one of the reference works?

The web references to this quote are all copies of this Wikipedia page. The Polish translation does not appear on the web connected with Sendzimir or Sędzimir.

Google translate returns the SAME Polish "i tylko mój kapitał" for both the phrases above but when translating back returns with "and only my capital" which reads better in English but has a slightly different meaning.

So the Polish phrase translating to or from English results in:
 * "and the only my capital" - Attributed words, meaning ambiguous, grammar incorrect
 * "and my only capital" - good grammar, my personal suspicion of what he meant, he was referring to one "method"
 * "and only my capital" - a reasonable alternative but broadens sense and does not match second part of quote

My contention is that the word "the" is spurious and the word order is misleading and that these are a translation or transcription artifact as it does not convey the sense of either of the more correct English versions.

Comment from a Polish speaker or student would be of interest especially someone with knowledge of idiom that could have caused this confusion in a translation. For someone who was as successful as Sendzimir and had experience in business in many languages it seems an unlikely mistake to have made.

Seems a bit sad to have a grammatical error immortalized in one's most famous quotation.

Idyllic press (talk) 09:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)