Studia Językoznawcze

The article contains an analysis of the 16th-century variant expression wycierać sobie gębę kimś, czymś [literally translation: ‘to wipe one’s kisser with somebody or something’], which in the contemporary prescriptive dictionaries is registered as wycierać sobie gębę, buzię, mordę kimś, czymś ‘to talk about somebody / something unfavourably, without due respect, with over-familiarity; to backbite, backmouth, slander somebody’. The research based on the materials of the National IPI PAN Corpus of Polish has revealed that the variant of the phrase concerns not three but seven nominal components: (1) gęba [mug], (2) buzia [face, kisser], (3) usta [mouth], (4) twarz [face], (5) pysk [gob], (6) morda [trap], and (7) ryj [chops]. On the other hand, the number of patterns of valence has decreased; in texts of the contemporary Polish language they occur in two patterns: ktoś [somebody] + wyciera sobie gębę [wipes their (1)/(2)...] + kim [(with) somebody] and ktoś [somebody] + wyciera sobie gębę + czym [(with) something]. In the contemporary Polish language the expression in question has acquired anew meaning, which prescriptive dictionaries failed to note; however, it has been registered by Wielki słownik języka polskiego, anon-prescriptive Internet dictionary, edited by P. Żmigrodzki: ‘to talk about some-body or something alot, inter alia in order to derive benefit’. The new meaning – according to the results of the research – is dominant; the old meaning, although it is less frequent, is con-stantly being updated in the contemporary Polish language. It is typical of the contexts, where the expression appears in the form ktoś + wyciera sobie gębę + kim.