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  What it means

  Literally “if someone wants to hit a dog, they’ll always find a stick.” Means that someone determined to find fault or cause harm will always find a pretext — “give a dog a bad name and hang him.”

  Vocabulary

  • uderzyć — to hit, to strike
  • kij — stick
  • znaleźć — to find

  Grammar note

  'Jak … to' introduces a conditional: if … then. 'Znajdzie' is third person singular future perfective of 'znaleźć'.

  Cultural context

  A cynical observation about how people who want to attack or blame others will always manufacture a reason.

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