3 most popular Polish sayings about soap and washing

From a young age, we are told how important it is to regularly wash our hands and take care of personal hygiene. In kindergartens and schools, we learn to recite poems and sing songs about soap. Washing and bathing are so present in our lives that sayings about them have become permanently ingrained in the language. What are the most popular idioms and proverbs related to hygiene?

How to soap someone's eyes?

Commonly known and used, this phrase refers to lying, or rather, to deliberately deceiving another person by providing false information under the guise of kindness. As it has been known for a long time, soap has many beneficial properties and is good for health, but if it gets into the eyes it can cause extremely unpleasant stinging and force the person to close their eyelids. The "soaped" person is supposed to believe that the process they are being subjected to is motivated by care and good intentions, while in reality, the person "soaping" them wants to cause irritation and tearing that will prevent them from seeing and judging the situation correctly.

What is particularly interesting, this phraseological connection dates back to the Middle Ages and has survived to this day, even with a story associated with it from that era, which greatly amused the elites of Krakow during the reign of the Jagiellonian dynasty. This anecdote, mentioned in the "New Calendar of Poland 2016" published by KASTOR Publishing House, tells the story of a wealthy townsman who fell victim to a daring robbery. The unfortunate man had the misfortune of letting two thieves into his house, who, pretending to be barbers, first lulled his vigilance, and then, while trimming his beard and performing other cosmetic procedures, covered his face with foam and took advantage of the fact that their "client" could not see much, stole a few things they deemed valuable and immediately fled the scene.

Outraged by the bold crime, the townsman then went to Wawel in search of justice, where his case was indeed heard, but did not receive proper condemnation, rather it was met with uncontrollable amusement, when during the interrogation the victimized man had to admit that he could not recognize the perpetrators of the theft because they proverbially "blinded him".

Why does frequent washing shorten life?

Today, used rather jokingly, the saying "frequent washing shortens life" has a grain of truth in it and owes its popularity to the great tragedy that was the plague epidemic that raged in Europe in the 14th century and, as estimated today, killed from 75 to 200 million people. Doctors struggling with the powerful plague of the "black death" came to the conclusion that the deadly disease enters the bodies of healthy people directly through the pores of the skin, so the warm baths in urban baths, which promote their cleansing and expansion, carry a significant risk of infection.

Although steamy and crowded bathhouses, as places crowded by large and diverse groups of people, could actually contribute to the spread of the bacteria responsible for the plague, the panic caused by doctors and the distrust of baths were completely disproportionate. City baths were not only closed, but also stories were told about them that were completely untrue, including that a woman using the same pool as a man could become pregnant and that in the case of pregnant women, bathing could lead to a miscarriage.

In all this madness, there was a method. As modern research shows, too frequent washing can actually weaken the body's immune system against various viruses and bacteria. Using shower gels, shampoos, and soaps removes not only dirt from the surface of the body, but also the naturally produced layer of fat that protects the skin from excessive drying, ensuring that there are no cracks in the skin that could facilitate the penetration of harmful microorganisms into the blood and cause a dangerous infection. Pediatricians often even advise new parents not to keep newborns in overly sterile conditions, so that children can develop a strong immune system and not be at risk for allergies or asthma in the future.

How to bathe a child?

What does the phrase "wylać dziecko z kąpielą" mean? It obviously refers to a situation in which, with good intentions, we accidentally cause some misfortune, or in an attempt to prevent a negative phenomenon, we take actions that unintentionally eliminate the positive aspect of a matter. Interestingly, many indications suggest that "wylać dziecko z kąpielą" is somehow related to the aforementioned proverb about frequent washing shortening one's life. Despite the fact that due to the epidemic, using public baths has become dangerous and many of them have been closed, people have not been discouraged from taking care of their hygiene and continue to take baths, but now at home, using tubs that had to be filled with water and then - emptied.

However, this process was undoubtedly much more complicated than in the case of a short visit to a bathhouse. In old houses, there were no separate bathrooms, and the whole undertaking required significant logistical preparations and involved the need to find a tub large enough to fit a person, and then to bring a large amount of water from a river or well and heat it in appropriately capacious containers. This took so long and was so labor-intensive that it didn't make sense for each family member to have a separate bath prepared, so all household members used the same tub of water one after another.

According to tradition and the prevailing hierarchy in the world at that time, the head of the family, i.e. the father, was the first to take a bath. Next in line were adult sons, followed by other men (e.g. grandparents), and then women and children, including infants. Naturally, the more people managed to wash themselves and the more time had passed since their last bath, the water in the tub gradually became more and more cloudy, often ending up with a dark color that made it impossible to see the bottom or a diving child's head. This often resulted in situations where pouring out the dirty water also ended with the youngest member of the family falling painfully onto the hard ground.

A proverb will tell you the truth

Although many idioms are intuitive and easily understandable, it is worth investigating their origins, as they often hide funny, instructive, and revealing stories from long gone times. Reflecting on how one can "pour out the baby with the bathwater" and what it means to "come out like Zabłocki on soap" allows us to see the Polish language from a completely new and interesting perspective.

Ryszard Kurek