What does “dalibóg” mean in Polish?

A game-show host meets a contestant named Czesław — surname Miłosz — and can’t contain himself: “Dalibóg, drodzy państwo!” It’s a fittingly old-fashioned oath for the joke: “dalibóg” fuses “da” (give), “li” (a conditional particle), and “Bóg” (God) into one archaic word meaning roughly “I swear to God.” The real Czesław Miłosz won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature — sharing his exact name is the entire punchline.

You won’t hear “dalibóg” in everyday conversation anymore — it survives mainly in classic novels, historical dramas, and deliberately theatrical humor like this cabaret sketch, where its antique flavor is the real seasoning on the joke.