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Comment by expertentipp | Hacker News Reader

Pułaski była kobietą!

You can say "Pułaski był" or "Pułaska była", but you can't say what you just said. This is not 'Nam, there are rules.

It's a paraphrase of a quote from a well known Polish comedy film Seksmisja. Highly recommended if you know Polish language and some culture/history! Also, you may then find out that numerous quotes from the film have entered the popular language :)

https://youtu.be/lwleaxA0ps0?t=266

You are right, and I fear the Polish Council is going to rule against me on this one.

Most probably yes... per the same inner motive, per which you yourself couldn't resist writing your initial comment! X-P

Kocham che!

Except in the movie it's only part of the joke. They keep naming famous historical figures this way, until one of the men shouts in frustration: "Yeah, and who else? Curie-Skłodowska?" :)

You certainly aren't expert on polish culture, otherwise you would instantly recognize the reference to a famous polish movie.

It's more complex than that because in the movie it's Copernicus, Kopernik była kobietą, and, unlike Pułaski, the surname Kopernik would be the same regardless of gender.

That said, expertentipp's version is the one that captures the spirit and the humour of the joke.

So that got me interested and after some digging: both are ok. Actually, legal documents have to use the original surname, without the traditional change of suffix. Wikipedia also claims it's not incorrect to use either form in casual context, but there's no reference for that.

I think you may be confusing it with more traditional suffixes like "-owa" and "-ówna". Legal documents definitely do use gendered version of the surname.

You're right, they're not treated the same.

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