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.
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Active Entries
- 1: To the green field by the sea
- 2: Eating cereal, remembering the sky
- 3: Like a sprig of yarrow caught in the dark
- 4: We'll tell you of a blossom and of buds on every tree
- 5: Am I lost inside my mind?
- 6: And the biggest old rascal come tumbling down first
- 7: You showed me how to not throw my troubles away
- 8: And the fisherman collects, yes, they collect the sounds from their nest above
- 9: We dig for the gods that leave no bones
- 10: Now there's always someone else in the back of your mind
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