First, let's take the English
buffoon. What example could I give? Imagine if the UK Prime Minister had a history of making himself look ridiculous in public. Try to picture a man, who can make a suit look untidy, stuck mid way on a zip-wire, his fat gut bulging through the harness, his trouser legs pulled up above his socks. As he sways impotently in the wind, he waves a small cheap union flag in each hand. This unlikely image is the very epitome of
buffoon. A buffoon is a joke. A fool. A ridiculous character. Laughable.
The Polish word bufon looks similar and shares the same etymological routes, but is it a false friend? Does it mean something different?
Like our own buffoon, the Polish bufon comes from the French bouffon for jester. It is also a derogatory term, but the meaning in Polish seems to be a selfish, conceited person. A bighead. I'm sure that if we scour the ranks of world leaders, we might just find one or two that epitomize this meaning of bufon.
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