Jeszcze o apelatywizacji imienia Janusz
Further Remarks on the Appellativisation of the Given Name Janusz

Summary/Abstract: The appellativisation of a given name, especially when related to its stigmatisation, is not frequent in Polish. All the more amazing is the rapid career of the name Janusz as an appellative. The phenomenon was first apparent in such phrases as janusze plaży or janusze polskiej gospodarki, used on the Internet and in the print media in the early 2010s, with a clear peak of the popularity of this type of phraseology observed in 2015. The names of Janusz’s wife Grażyna or of his son Seba (Sebastian) have not yet been appellativised, but they also create an image of “typical Poles”, overusing beach windscreens, wearing socks with sandals, stealing pencils from Ikea or trying to impress their neighbours at all costs. Based on an analysis of corpus-type data, this article attempts to explain why this name has become a symbol of the shameful traits of Poles, what associations it evokes, and to what degree it has been subject to appellativisation.

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