In recent years, the Polish noun onuca (‘a piece of linen or cotton flannel fabric for wrapping feet’) has become widespread in a figurative sense, used to describe a person who is poor, foolish, or of lower-status person, as well as a person on the opposite side of political divisions — in particular, an ally of Russia. In this sense, onuca is combined with various adjectives to form expressions like chińska onuca (‘chinese’), kibolska onuca (‘hooligan’), żydowska onuca (‘Jewish’), and so on. The article compiles dozens such combinations and examines the linguistic and extralinguistic factors that contributed to the emergence of this metaphorical meaning of the noun onuca.
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