„Szczęść Boże panie księdzu... O zwrotach grzecznościowych kierowanych do księży przez dzieci i młodzież

The article discusses the issue how the youth and children use the language formula while greeting or bid farewell to priests. It has been written on the verge of my research on the juvenile jargon concerning the greeting forms and the results of the survey presented in this article have merely a pilot character. The research has been conducted in two schools, in a village and in town and it covered three forms : the third and the fifth form in a primary school and the second form in a middle school. The pupils have been asked five questions. The research shows that the majority of children know how to address a clergyman and can use relgious words of greeting and farewell. This knowledge has been obtained either at home or at the religion lessons at school. However, the reults of the survey show that there is also a group of pupils who do not know any of the proper words in which to bid ‘good morning’ or farewell to a priest according to the Polish tradition. There is also another group of children who do know the fixed form of words that should be used but who will deliberately refuse to use the formula and will ostentatiously use only a ‘secular language’. Nonetheless, a complete lack of knowledge of formal greeting forms and the answers while talking to a clergyman has been revealed by those who did not give any answers in the survey. This situation can be explained by the fact that that such religious formulas as ‘Praise the Lord’ or ‘God bless you’ apply to communication between clerygmen or between clerygmen and secular adults, especially elderly people. They are also used among secular people who belong to religious communities. Consequently, a majority of children and young people do not use these formal religious greeting forms in their everyday lives. They are not accustomed to the religious forms by hearing as well which results in grammar problems while they are trying to use them. Some pupils have a problem with the proper inflection forms of the word ‘priest’.