Historia leksemu "badylarz" (na marginesie prac nad "Wielkim słownikiem języka polskiego PAN")
The history of the lexeme "badylarz" (in connection with works on the "PAS Great Dictionary of Polish")

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the semantic and pragmatic evolution of the lexical unit "badylarz" (‘vegetable gardener’). The author challenges the generally accepted opinions about its history, making use of data from dictionaries, digital libraries and corpora of the Polish language. It is commonly believed that the word came into existence during the PRL era and belonged to the typical elements of the discourse of communist propaganda. An analysis of the collected data showed that the word "badylarz" existed as far back as the second half of the 19th century. Originally, it was a neutral lexeme, but in the interwar period it became one of the offensive names of class enemies, often used in left-wing newspapers. After the war, negative connotations of the word were disseminated through literature and popular culture. Nowadays, "badylarz" functions as the lexical exponent of cultural memory of communist times.

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