This is the best comic I have ever seen about tmesis in the English language and also nearly identical to the example we were given in Latin III, except that instead of ridiculous the host word was unbelievable. It's an actual morphological rule; I believe in English it has to do with syllabic stress (in Latin, it's more strictly the splitting—τμῆσις—of a compound word). No one should have been surprised that it led to a brief fad of students saying unbelievfuckingable just to be difficult. Dr. Fiveash also spoke fondly of the emphatic possibilities of reduplication: unbe . . . believable, which I have never actually used in conversation no matter my level of incredulity, but I appreciate having been told in my junior year of high school that I could.
Links
Active Entries
- 1: And I'm sorry that I forgot that binders don't go in the dryer
- 2: And where the arrow leads, you never know
- 3: Trying my best to arrive
- 4: The earth is too smart for us to break through
- 5: Cigarette, Alka-Seltzer, career to the back of the place
- 6: So can we say we'll never say the classic stuff, just show it?
- 7: Did karma do you justice when you're down and out and lost?
- 8: The rose will grow on ice before we change our mind
- 9: I can see the alchemy
Style Credit
- Style: Classic for Refried Tablet by and
Expand Cut Tags
No cut tags