Przysłowie Diabeł tkwi w szczegółach we współczesnej polszczyźnie

Abstract

The proverb Diabeł tkwi w szczegółach ‘the devil is in the detail’ in contemporary Polish. Rhetoricity, mystification, stereotype The paper is devoted to the functioning of the proverb diabeł tkwi w szczegółach in multi-genre texts of contemporary Polish. The author discusses the rhetoric potential of the phrase, used when there are problems with the realization of some undertaking. Senders like to use it in the beginning (in the title) and at the end of the text. The persuasive efficiency of an utterance containing the discussed phrase is raised by granting the status of a proverb to the sentence diabeł tkwi w szczegółach, and in particular, by garnishing it with such adjectives as dawne, stare, tradycyjne (‘ancient’, ‘old’, ‘traditional’), or a stylistic qualifier jak to mówią chłopi ‘as peasants say’. In actual fact, the antiquity and popularity of this maxim are a mistification. The last part of the paper is devoted to a reconstruction of the semantics of the proverb, especially with regard to the formally similar phrase bóg tkwi w szczegółach ‘the god is in the detail’.

Keywords

• przysłowie
• współczesna polszczyzna
• stereotyp
• dyskurs