English
Język Polski
The mysterious “physics is right”. Some remarks on the phraseologism in Burza
Abstract
This article is concerned with the meaning and origin of the expression racja fizyka [physics/phycisist is right], which can be found at the end of Burza [Tempest] – one of the links in the poem Pięć zarysów [Five Sketches]. The phrase, which functions in the work as a humorous retort questioning an earlier statement, has so far been associated with the Latin construction ratio physica and described in dictionaries under the entry physics. Meanwhile, it is more likely that the phrase uses one of the old meanings of the noun physicist, present in 19th-century dialect Polish. This meaning became the basis for the humorous folk sayings “Racja fizyka, Kaśka butów nie ma” (physics is right, the shoe is off) and “Racja fizyka, spdała świnia z chlewika” (physics is right, the pig has fallen from a pigsty), as well as for the phrase in question, also recorded in literary sources from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Keywords:
Norwid, physicist, physics, physics is right, phraseology, phraseologism, dialectDetails
References
Statistics
Authors
Cited by / Share
Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.