Chwycić języka, czyli z sekretów polszczyzny (z wizytą na antenie Polskiego Radia Katowice)
Take hold of the tongue, or the secrets of the Polish language (with a visit to Polish Radio Katowice)

Author(s): Agnieszka Piela
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Lexis, Semantics, Phraseology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: etymology; contemporary and historical Polish; semantics; lexis; phraseology; paremiology
Summary/Abstract: The book is intended as a source of linguistic curiosities. It is the result of the author's descriptions of words and common verbal constructions selected from the resources of the Polish language for the purpose of presenting them to the radio audience of Agnieszka Strzemińska’s programme "Słowa i słówka. Chwycić języka, czyli z sekretów polszczyzny..." comprises 104 sketches concerning the mysteries of the Polish mother tongue. The study contains diverse linguistic material. Agnieszka Piela describes words that are intriguing in their very sound, e.g. absztyfikant, fidrygałki, safanduła, and phraseologisms that contain in their composition an enigmatic word, e.g. brać na spytki, nudy na pudy, śmiać się w kułak. The author also draws attention to seemingly ordinary lexemes, e.g. dworzec, przeciąg, rosół – which, as it turns out, also conceal a linguistic secret. The studied collection of lexemes and word combinations is the basis for observing the phenomena affected by linguistic forms in a temporal perspective. The publication devotes a lot of space to past customs, while numerous references to literary and cultural texts not only embellish the lecture, but also allow for a better understanding of the language of our ancestors and contemporary Polish. The composition of the work makes it possible to read the book in two ways: either from cover to cover, or in its individual parts – those that interest the reader most at a given moment. This is because each linguistic sketch constitutes a closed whole.

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