On the decline

Based on some of the conversations we’ve been having with companies (both Polish and foreign) operating in Poland, you could come to the conclusion that inflection is some kind of crime against humanity – or at least, against the language of business. From them it might seem to be the greatest and possibly the only problem involved in running a business in this country. The terror that declination strikes into the hearts of companies is almost as bewlidering as the rules of Polish grammar itself. However, since we are a magazine that covers not only Poland but also the rest of the region, we are aware of the much laxer attitudes to such issues in those other languages. In Russia the natives even go so far as to use a whole different set of letters, rendering trade and proper names into phonetic transcriptions – seemingly without a murmur from foreign companies. In the Baltic states, the language police are also very vigilant. Not only are names always written phonetic