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  What it means

  Literally “to separate the grain from the chaff,” this means to distinguish what is valuable and essential from what is worthless. It is used when dealing with a lot of information or people and needing to identify the high-quality parts. In a business context, it might refer to filtering out bad candidates to find the few good ones.

  Vocabulary

  • ziarno — grain / seed
  • plewy — chaff / husks
  • oddzielać — to separate (imperfective)

  Grammar note

  The preposition 'od' (from) takes the genitive plural form 'plew' (from 'plewy'). The verb 'oddzielać' is imperfective, often used to describe a process that takes time and effort.

  Cultural context

  This idiom has biblical origins (the Parable of the Tares) and is common in many European languages. In Polish, it is considered a more sophisticated, elegant way to describe the act of selection.

  Intermediate

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