Cognitive Approaches to Specialist Languages

Are (Polish) Politicians Out of this World? 69

The suggestion expressed in Figure 3 pertains to the public reaction to an
inappropriate remark by MP Robert Iwaszkiewicz who, when asked to
comment on corporal punishment, admitted to occasionally spanking his
own sons, and supported the idea of hitting women, which – in his own
words – “might help quite a lot of wives to return to Earth.”^7

Space as a void/trash heap/place of exile

Uninviting dark desolate free space looks like an ideal location for exiles,
as in (28), or a political void as in (29):

(28) “Nie zabija siĊ przeciwników w sensie dosáownym, ale

wysyáa w jakiĞ polityczny kosmos. RzeczywiĞcie polityczny

kosmos PO jest caákiem pokaĨny”

(You don’t kill your opponents literally, but send them into

political outer space. The PO political outer space is fairly

vast indeed),

(29) “Marszaákami nie zostają ludzie z kosmosu. Ci ludzie mają

biografiĊ, dorobek, osiągniĊcia”

(Marshals do not come from outer space. These people have

their biographies, life’s work, achievements),

(30) “Wiktor ĝwietlik: W kosmos z Tuskiem i Pawlakiem!”

(Wiktor ĝwietlik: Send Tusk and Pawlak into space!).

Figure 4 presents a pictorial application of such a metaphor to suggest
that the Polish MP, Antoni Macierewicz has lost touch with reality and has
ended up as a political outsider. The cover photograph alludes to the fact
that Antoni Macierewicz, an avid proponent of the controversial view that
the 2010 Smolensk plane crash was an assassination organised by Russia,
discredited himself and the cause in a live conference he had convened
during which a panel of (supposedly) eminent experts, faced with Internet
jokers, displayed a compromising lack of competence in dealing with the
situation and technology. Their credibility in this and a number of other
public events was severely undermined. Antoni Macierewicz himself, as a
zealous supporter of this conspiracy theory, while lacking conclusive
evidence, earned himself the reputation of a pitiable lone fighter, whose

(^7) Source: Europoseá Korwin-Mikke: bicie Īony? Niejednej na pewno by pomogáo
zejĞü na ziemiĊ
Gazeta Wrocáawska. 2014-06-01. [Available from: http://wiadomosci.wp.pl
/kat,1342,title,Europosel-Korwin-Mikkego-bicie-zony-Niejednej-na-pewno-by-
pomoglo-zejsc-na-ziemie,wid,16647186,wiadomosc.html