Grubość i chudość w polszczyźnie

Abstract

The article refers to the currently popular problem of “fighting with extra weight”. The paper presents various verbal and stylistic ways of naming thick and thin people used in today’s Polish language, especially in its colloquial (informal) form. The analysis is based on a collection of about 440 different terms used for describing thick and thin people as well as common words and phrases that form the word field of thickness and thinness. In addition to the basic synonyms and idioms which name these deficiencies in the physical appearance, the article shows, among others, names that connote the level of massiveness of the human body, verbs that refer to gaining and losing weight, words describing characteristic, visible features associated with obesity or leanness. It also distinguishes four groups of metaphorical expressions of corpulent and slim people, motivated by a variety of names designating respectively round or thin and narrow shape or appearance. The author also notes significant lexical-quantitative disproportion of vocabulary concerning thickness in relation to the vocabulary of the verbal field of thinness, suggesting that there is an asymmetry that could be the verbal evidence of “fighting with obesity.”