Once, during an ocean voyage, Julian Tuwim met a woman and began flirting with her. When she heard that Tuwim was a Pole, she said:
‘Ah, Poland is such an exotic country! I don’t know anything about it. Please say something in Polish!’
Tuwim answered her with a Polish tongue twister 'W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie' (In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle is buzzing in the reeds) from Jan Brzechwa’s poem 'The Beetle' (Chrząszcz). The cascade of sibilants delighted her, and she exclaimed:
‘My God, what amazing rustling sounds! Come on, say something else in the same spirit!’
Tuwim suddenly felt as though he were being treated like a circus act, so he replied with a phrase containing not a single sibilant sound:
‘Hulali po polu i pili kakao’ (They frolicked through the fields and drank cocoa).
For some reason, the woman took offence.
However, some of Tuwim’s close friends claimed that the story happened differently.
During World War II, Tuwim eventually found himself in New York, where he met a young Hawaiian woman. When she asked him to say something in Polish, he replied: ‘Hulali po polu i pili kakao’, adding: ‘In our language, that means: “You are very pretty and I love you.”’ She exclaimed: ‘It sounds so much like the words of our song “Aloha ‘Oe” (“Goodbye to You”)!’
The story later inspired Polish lyricist Marek Dutkiewicz to write Najpiękniejsza w klasie (‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the Class’), popularised by singer Majka Jeżowska. The song, of course, opens with the words ‘Hulali po polu i pili kakao…’
Some of Tuwim’s witticisms, however, could be inexcusably cruel. One day, he was introduced to a very stout woman and, after taking in her figure, exclaimed:
‘What a pity that I didn’t get to know you twenty kilograms ago!’