• Listen

  What it means

  Literally “to have things not in order in one’s head.” This idiom means that someone is confused, irrational, or mentally disorganised — their thoughts are jumbled and they are not thinking clearly. It can describe harmless absent-mindedness or, more pointedly, serious eccentricity bordering on foolishness. Poles use it both affectionately about a scattered-brained friend and critically about someone who says or does something bewilderingly illogical.

  Vocabulary

  • mieć — to have (imperfective)
  • po kolei — in order, one by one, sequentially
  • głowa — head (głowie = locative, 'in the head')

  Grammar note

  The phrase uses mieć + a prepositional phrase: w głowie (in the head) with głowie in the locative case. The negation nie po kolei modifies an implied noun (rzeczy, 'things') functioning as the object of mieć, making it: 'to have [things] not-in-order in [one's] head.' The possessor is implied by context, as is typical in Polish body-part expressions.

  Cultural context

  This is a colloquial, mildly informal expression. It sits in the same register as English 'not all there' or 'a few screws loose.' It is rarely truly offensive — Poles frequently use it with a shrug or a smile — but in a serious context it can imply someone is genuinely unfit to make decisions.

  Beginner

Noticed a typo, a wrong translation, or anything that doesn't look right? We'd love to fix it — just let us know via the contact page. Thank you!