Thursday, December 29, 2005

Why are the tables of contents in Czech books at the end of the book rather than the beginning?

Though I'm not sure on this one, I would guess that Czechs are simply following the tradition of other continental European countries like France where tables of contents are at the end of the book. Some new titles have taken up the English language tradition of putting the TOC at the front, but the mode still seems to be in the back. The logic of this, however, continues to elude me. Comments from readers are welcome.

Friday, December 23, 2005

As I was walking down the street, I came upon a bunch of high school students in costumes begging for money. What gives?

In the week before their school-leaving exams – the so-called holy week (svatý týden) – high school seniors dress up in the craziest costumes they can find and go out begging for contributions to fund their graduation party in a ritual known as poslední zvonění (the last ringing). Until recently, one could also see young men who had just completed their mandatory military service parading down the streets. Typically drunk, they wore clothes that had been signed or decorated by their fellow soldiers and every few minutes chanted, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, CIVIL!”

On the ground floor of my apartment building there is a red box with a large capital letter H. What is it?

The H stands for hasičské přístroje, in other words, fire extinguishing equipment.

Bus and train schedules are covered with a bunch of strange symbols. What are they?

The crossed hammers indicate that the bus or train runs only on working days, while a cross indicates that it runs on Sundays and national holidays. Days of the week are sometimes designated by numbers – 1 = Monday, 2 = Tuesday, etc. Czechs also use the terms “day of labor freedom” (den pracovního volna) for Saturdays – because under communism Saturdays often turned into work days – and “day of labor rest” (den pracovního klidu) for Sundays and holidays.

Why is the first floor of most Czech buildings actually the second floor?

For most Brits and Europeans, the Czech floor numbering system is standard – the first floor above the ground is known as the ground floor (přízemi) while the next floor up is the first floor (known alternatively as the první patro or první poschodí – poschodí means by the stairs). Americans (as well as Japanese and Russians), however, may be confused because they tend to use the term first floor to refer the first floor above the ground. To confuse matters, the Czech word podlaží can be used in the American sense of numbering so that 1. patro = 2. podlaží.

Do the letters and numbers on Czech license plates have any meaning?

Until recently the first two or three letters of one’s license plate number depended on the county (okres) where the car was registered. Usually these letters corresponded with the first letters of the local county seat (okresní město); thus residents of the area around Tábor had license plates starting with TA and those around Ústí nad Labem with UL or US. The one exception was Prague whose license plates traditionally began with the letter A. Envy or dislike of Prague means that cars with Prague plates may be honked at or even defaced in the provinces. When counties were eliminated in the year 2000 and replaced with 14 new regions (kraj), this system was changed. Now license plates began with a number and the second place is filled by a letter indicating the region where the car is registered (A=Prague, B=South Moravia, C=South Bohemia, E=Pardubice, etc.). The old way of numbering was known as SPZ or státní poznávací značky (state identification signs) and shows up frequently in crossword puzzle clues.

Who are the people who come on between programs on Czech Television?

They are known as programoví hlasatelé (program announcers). They have been around since the dawn of broadcasting in the fifties and deliver brief introductions to the following program or to the entire evening’s programming. Their introductions typically consist of the sort of short blurbs that one reads in TV Guide and were presumably originally a substitute for such non-existent guides (they may still serve that purpose among some older citizens). Under communism, program announcers like Saskia Burešová, Alexandr Hemala, and especially Miloš Frýba achieved a sort of cult status – they were known for their flawless pronunciation as well as their elegant wardrobes. None of the new private TV stations uses hlasatelé and Czech Television has recently decided to eliminate them as unnecessary, though a few nostalgics believe that without them the station will lose a degree of cultivation.

When trams come to a divided track, how come sometimes the driver gets out to switch the tracks with a crowbar and sometimes doesn’t.

The driver is supposed to be able to switch the tracks by remote control, but sometimes his signal doesn’t catch and so he has to get out and switch the tracks manually. One can often hear the drivers curse when they have to do this.

Why does Sparta Praha always finish first in the football league?

The short answer is money. Sparta spends more money than any other team. Their annual budget is 300 million crowns. This compares to 100 million for their traditional rival Slavia and far less for some of the smaller teams. Sparta uses this money to buy up players from weaker clubs and from abroad as well as to fund lower-division teams (there is a Sparta B team playing in the second division) and youth organizations from which they recruit players. Whether they also use it to pay off referees continues to be an object of much speculation.

Where does all this money come from? Most of it comes from sponsoring deals. Right now Sparta has a contract with the mobile phone operator Eurotel whose insignia can be seen on the uniforms of Sparta players. Other teams have similar deals – they usually have a general partner whose logo figures most prominently in addition to other minor sponsors – but since Sparta is the most successful and most followed team in the country, Sparta’s sponsoring deal is much sweeter than those of other teams.

As mentioned above, Sparta buys up rising stars from other Czech clubs, but then they also sell them on to clubs in richer European leagues, which constitutes another source of revenue. Of the top ten most expensive transfers in Czech history, Sparta was the beneficiary of seven. For selling superstar midfielder Tomáš Rosický to Dortmund Borussia in Germany, for example, Sparta earned a record 504 million crowns.

Another source of money is the team’s fan base. Sparta has a large number of devoted fans (known as Sparťané) who support the team by attending its matches and buying its merchandise. This large fan base is a consequence of the team’s success and the size and influence of Prague. Finally, because of its success in the domestic league, Sparta frequently gets to play in European cups. Thus, by winning the domestic league last year, Sparta automatically qualified for the European Champions League and will receive hefty bonuses for simply participating and even larger ones if they manage to advance. In all it is a case of success breeding success.

And does Sparta’s inevitable success make soccer less entertaining for Czechs? Perhaps, but it also has its pleasures. One can at one and the same time nourish a passionate hatred for Sparta and root for all of its rivals in the domestic league and also take solace in the fact that by gathering many of the country’s best players in one place, a relatively small country has a better chance of competing with clubs from far better and richer leagues in Europe. Unfortunately, the same thing happens in other national leagues with superclubs like Bayern Munich or Real Madrid dominating their own domestic leagues.

What are metal pipes attached to the front of buildings between the first and second floors?

They are used for holding flags or banners. Though not much in use today, except in public buildings where they sport Czech flags on national holidays like October 28, under communism, it was mandatory for all apartment buildings to be decorated with Soviet flags and red banners on designated holidays. For example, on May 1 or Great October Socialist Revolution Day (November 7) not only did all buildings have to fly Soviet and Czech flags – notice that in most cases there are holders for two flags – but that every window in the building had to sport a banner, flag, or slogan. Prizes were awarded to apartment buildings with the highest participation rates and punishments meted out to buildings and individuals who neglected their civic duty.

Why do most buildings and homes have two numbers on their facades? One is obviously the street number, but what is the other?

This is known as the číslo popisné, the descriptive or land-registry number. It is intended to be a more permanent indicator of a piece of land than the street address (known as the číslo orientační) which may change over time. The descriptive number is assigned by the town quarter and so is typically accompanied by the name (or number) of the quarter. In buying cottages, Czechs often look for places that have been assigned descriptive and orientation numbers, because this indicates that they are of a more permanent character than those issued only an evidence number (evidenční číslo).

Thursday, December 22, 2005

When I asked a friend how big his apartment was, he said that it was 2 plus 1. What does this mean?

Czech apartments are typically designated according to the number of rooms and the presence of a kitchen. Thus, 3+1 means three rooms plus a kitchen. The rooms though are not just bedrooms, but all inhabited areas – perhaps because the small size of apartments forces Czechs to put individual rooms to multiple uses. A 3+0 would be three rooms without a kitchen. Sometimes the abbreviation kk (kuchyňský kout or kitchen section) is used for a mini-kitchen that is part of another room. Thus, a studio apartment – called a garsonka – would be 1+kk or even 1+0. Smaller rooms – for example in older buildings the former maid’s quarters – might be designated as one-half (e.g., 3.5+1).

I’ve seen crossword puzzles in Czech newspapers and magazines, but they look different than English ones. How do they work?

The most popular types of crosswords - known as Swedish crosswords - are essentially the same as the traditional American style with a few minor differences.

- The clues are not numbered, but instead written inside what would be the black squares. Some of these squares contain two clues: the upper one indicates across and the lower one down. The result is that the puzzle has very few black squares.

- Most puzzles contain a number of so-called hints (nápovědy). They are in fact simply a list of answers to some of the more difficult clues – usually ones drawn from foreign languages. The hints are usually in a small box in the lower right corner or along the left edge of the puzzle.

- The goal of the puzzles is not just filling in all of the blanks, but deciphering the hidden message (tajenka) which is typically a quotation strung across several entries. There are no specific clues for the spaces where the hidden message lies – only the words “first/second/third part of the hidden message” – and so one needs to fill in the crossing entries to figure it out. The author of the quotation and perhaps its first words are usually given at the top of the crossword. In many newspapers and magazines, the hidden message can be submitted and entered in a drawing for small prizes.

- Clues are almost always straightforward – i.e., no anagrams, puns, or other clever word games. For two-letter entries – another specificity of Czech puzzles – the clue is typically the initials of a famous person (e.g., “The initials of the tennis player Agassi”). One common standby is the clue SPZ followed by a city name – this refers to the license plate abbreviations (státní poznávací značka) that used to be connected with major cities and usually coincides with the first three letters of the city’s name. As in other countries, there are a number of clues that will leave ordinary Czechs befuddled but are familiar to diehard solvers – for example, “Latvian liquor” – XX.

- While many countries ignore diacritics (e.g., accent marks) in their crossword puzzles, Czechs, following their passion for spelling and grammar, require that the diacritics match when across and down entries intersect.

Where do bus and tram drivers go to the bathroom?

At the end of every bus and tram line, there is a small wooden covered area for waiting passengers to which is attached a bathroom. Unfortunately, only the drivers have keys to these bathrooms so they are not open to the public.

Why do Czechs always talk about the air pressure (tlak)?

It is a widespread belief that changes in the air pressure have predictable health consequences – causing headaches, tiredness, and other pains. Thus, it is common to attribute one’s feeling under the weather to the strange air pressure. The interest in pressure may have something to do with the communist way of reporting the weather. A typical report on the radio would go something like this:

Occluded front: 356-42 359-44 360-30
Warm front: 350-38 345-34 341-33

Height, pressure, temperature, dew point:
570 – 954 – 76 – 3.6
2,760 – 725 – 9.9 - 14

It’s worth adding that even Czechs were mystified by these numbers. Even today, though, the tlaková tendence (pressure tendency) features in weather reports.

As for cures for health ailments, Czechs are firm believers in the health benefits of many specialized teas. All pharmacies stock various teas that are prescribed for respiratory, urinary, and a host of other problems.