Potrzebie & MAD magazine

[Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

	Thanks, everyone.  So, potrzebie is the accusative
case of a noun meaning NEED, NECESSITY, DISTRESS, or
WANT.  One might use it in a prepositional phrase, such
as "w potrzebie", "in need", "in want", "in distress". 
If it's accusative, I suppose one could also use it as
a direct object, as in "I cause distress".

	Thanks, all!  I've included everyones' replies for all
the marvelous MAD magazine lore.  I read MAD around
1961-1963 and "potrzebie" was still there.  I never
heard of Frederic Wertham and an early crazy period for
MAD.  I remember the talk of the 1950's and 1960's that
comic books corrupted youth, although by the time I
read them they were quite sanitized.  I've seen 30's
comics that weren't.  

	ObVMs:  One of my friends looked at some of the
biological folios of the VMs.  He said the contorted
piping looked like something from Dr. Seuss.  Hmmm...
Dee and Kelly had unrecorded seances where they looked
into the future.  They saw Dr. Seuss' drawings and 
liked them.  They liked his poems too; the acrostic on
the  text-only page is one of Dr. Seuss' poems,
translated into Enochian and written in Voynich script
...

	Nah.

Dennis

> John Stojko wrote:
> 
> >  (Even further afield.  Can anyone tell me what the
> > Polish word "potrzebie" means?  English-speakers
> > pronounce this word, used in the adolescent humor
> > magazine MAD, "pah-tur-ZEE-bee", but the Poles
> > pronounce it "poh-CHEB-yeh".  I thought it meant
> > "aspirin" but the Poles say "aspirin" too.)
> >
> Dennis,
> 
> The Polish word "potrzebie" probably taken from sentance.
> It look like in sentance it was "w potrzebie" which means:
> in need, to want etc.
> The root word "potrzeba" means, need, want, requirements, necessity.
> The best way to prenounce the word "potrzebie"is PO-TCHE-BIE.

John Grove wrote:
> 
> Hi Dennis, I believe it means NEED or NECESSITY or DISTRESS or WANT

> RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> I blush to admit that I'm old enough to remember the early 1950's MAD comic
> book that got afoul of the crazy psychiatrist Fredric ("Seduction of the
> Innocent") Wertham and re-emerged as the present magazine. MAD used to run
> pages, totally without explanation, in foreign languages, and words from
> those pages sometimes crept into the surrounding copy, also quite without
> explanation.
> 
> Potrzebie was the most durable of these words, lasting perhaps five years
> before they killed it, also without explanation, around 1959. Kids usually
> pronounced it pot-ra-ZEE-bie. I recall looking it up in a Polish dictionary
> back then, and finding that it was the accusative case of a noun meaning
> "want" or "need".

> Jacques Guy wrote:
> 
> I also remember Mad Magazine in the 50's when
> it cost 20c (CHEAP!), and when it went up to
> 25c (CHEAP! crossed  out, then STILL CHEAP!).
> 
> To me, potrzebie sounded strangely like
> "peau d'zébi" which means "zilch, bugger-all".
> (Zébi is slang for "prick", from the Arabic
> zubbi "my penis").