opisal

Opisal is the non-diacritic spelling of the Polish past tense form opisał, the masculine singular form of the verb opisać, which means “to describe.” This ASCII variant appears when diacritical marks are omitted, such as in plain ASCII text, programming comments, or older publications where Polish letters are not available.

Etymology and morphology: The verb opisać is used to express the completion of describing something. The past masculine singular form opisał is formed from the root opis- with the ending -ał. When diacritics are removed, opisał becomes opisal. Other persons and numbers have corresponding ASCII spellings such as opisala (she described), opisalo (it described), opisali (they described), and opisaliśmy (we described). In formal Polish orthography, these forms include characters like ł, ś, and ć, which are often dropped in ASCII text.

Usage and notes: Opisal is not standard Polish orthography in formal writing; it is primarily encountered in texts where diacritics are unavailable or deliberately omitted. It can cause ambiguity with genuine proper nouns or surnames if capitalized (Opisal). In general, when accurate spelling is required, opisał should be used; when diacritics are not possible, opisal is the common non-diacritic alternative.