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    What it means

    Literally “to go as if on frozen clods of earth.” Describes something that is going very badly, with great difficulty — nothing is working smoothly.

    Vocabulary

    • gruda — frozen clod of earth
    • po grudzie — over frozen ground

    Grammar note

    'Po grudzie' uses the locative of 'gruda' after 'po'.

    Cultural context

    Gruda refers to the hard, uneven frozen ground of late autumn — a very Polish seasonal image of difficult conditions.

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