Polishing stone is common in the real world, to make it look nicer, but as hinted above it takes a whole lot more work than it does in Minecraft. It dates way back, at least to ancient Egyptian times, when sand was used to make the surfaces of statues and monuments shinier.
Despite my dodgy joke in the introduction, polishing doesn’t actually have anything to do with Poland. The word comes from the Latin word “polire”, which means “to make smooth, decorate, or embellish”, and perhaps from the proto-Indo-European root *pel-, which means “to thrust, drive or strike”. Poland’s name, on the other hand, comes from the Slavonic word “polje”, meaning “field”.
Wherever it comes from, polished stone can be found all over the place in the modern world – and granite is a common choice. You’ll see it on the walls and floors of fancy buildings like hotels, but it’s also common as a surface in luxurious kitchens – because it’s waterproof, tough, easy to clean, and most importantly of all, really quite pretty. Just like me!