Definition and Examples of Tmesis

Definition and Examples of Tmesis Tmesis is the division of the pieces of a compound word by another word or words, normally for accentuation or comic impact. The descriptive word structure isâ tmetic. Identified with tmesis is synchesis, the cluttering of word request in an articulation. Etymology: From the Greek, a cutting Pronunciation:â (te-)ME-sister Likewise Known As: infix, tumbarumba (Australia) Models and Observations Abso-mother lovin' lutely! I said triumphantly as I intellectually crossed my fingers. (Victoria Laurie, A Vision of Murder. Seal, 2005)Goodbye, Piccadilly. Goodbye, Leicester ridiculous Square. (James Marsters as Spike in Becoming: Part 2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1998)Whoopdee-damn-doo, Bruce thought. At most papers, general task correspondents were newsroom eminence, given the most significant stories. At the East Lauderdale Tattler, they were an indent above janitors, and troubled with humble undertakings . . .. (Ken Kaye, Final Revenge. AuthorHouse, 2008)To convince individuals to continue viewing [the TV program Zoo Quest], [David] Attenborough gave the arrangement a target, an uncommon creature to seek after: picarthates gymnocephalus, the bare headed stone crow. He questioned this animal would be sufficiently appealing, however when his cameraman Charles Lagus was driving him down Regent Street in an open-top games vehicle and a transport driver inclined out of his taxi and solicited, in a perfect bit of tmesis, in the event that he was ever going to get that Picafartees gymno-wicked cephalus, he realized it had held up itself in the open psyche. (Joe Moran, Armchair Nation. Profile, 2013) This isn't Romeo, hes some other where. (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)In what torn boat soever I embark,That transport will be my emblemWhat ocean soever swallow me, that floodShall be to me a token of thy blood. (John Donne, Hymn to Christ, at the Authors Last Going Into Germany)Most frequently, tmesis is applied to mixes of ever. What direction so ever man allude to it (Milton); that manhow profoundly ever separated (Troilus and Cressida 3.3.96); how shocking eer it be,/To win thy after-adoration I pardon thee (Richard II 5.3.34). In any case, the syllable of any word can be isolated: Oh so flawless sitting abso-sprouting lutely still (A. Lerner and F. Lowe, My Fair Lady). Or on the other hand See his windlilycockslaced (G.M. Hopkins, Harry Plowman). Tmesis is additionally usually utilized as far as British slang, for example, hoo-ridiculous beam. (A. Quinn, Tmesis. Reference book of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. by T. Enos. Taylor Francis, 1996)Its a kind of long cocktail he got the recipe off a barman in Marrakesh or some-ridiculous where. (Kingsley Amis, Take a Girl Like You, 1960) I summoned up the fortitude to jab a camera through Terry Adamss front door a year ago, just to be met with a minders welcoming: Why dont you leave us a-f-ing-solitary. I wonder if the beast knew about his utilization of tmesis, the addition of single word into another? (Martin Brunt, How Terror Has Changed the Crime Beat. The Guardian, Nov. 26, 2007)old age sticksup KeepOffsigns) youth yanks themdown(oldagecries NoTres) (pas)youth laughs(singold agescolds Forbidden StopMustnt Dont) youth goesright ongrowing old(E.E. Cummings, mature age sticks)Gideon [Kent] knew [Joseph] Pulitzer, obviously. He respected the distributers request that his paper never become the hostage of any gathering or ideological group. Indegoddamnpendent was Pulitzers special method of putting it. (John Jakes, The Americans. Nelson Doubleday, 1980) Tmetic Rhythms At the point when you embed a word for accentuation be it fricking, bleeping, something ruder, or something less discourteous you cant simply stick it any old where. We know this in light of the fact that abso-cracking lutely is fine yet abdominal muscle cracking solutely or total cracking ly isn't. Regardless of whether its in a word, an expression, or a name-you stick the decided expansion directly before a focused on syllable, normally the syllable with the most grounded pressure, and regularly the last focused on syllable. What were doing, in prosodic terms, is embeddings a foot. . . . With regards to putting these additional feet in, we ordinarily break the word or expression as per the mood of what were embeddings. Regarding life, what to think about it, that is the issue is thought of as predictable rhyming, yet you wont break it between iambs if your intruding by walking is a trochee: To be or not to bleeping be, not To be or not bleeping to be . . . Yet, on the off chance that its an iamb? To be or not the hell to be, not To be or not to the hell be. See, these are impolite, intruding on words. Theyre breaking in and destroying the structure. That is the cracking point. Be that as it may, they despite everything do it with a musical inclination. (James Harbeck, Why Linguists Freak Out About Absofreakinglutely. The Week, December 11, 2014) The Split Infinitive as Tmesis A split infinitive has been somewhere else characterized as a kind of syntactic tmesis in which a word, particularly a modifier, happens among to and the infinitival type of an action word. Various marks have been utilized to name this specific requesting of English, spiked verb modifier or parted infinitive among others, yet the term split infinitive has in the long run supplanted every one of its ancestors (Smith 1959: 270). (Javier Calle-Martin and Antonio Miranda-Garcia, On the Use of Split Infinitives in English. Corpus Linguistics: Refinements and Reassessments, ed. by Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe. Rodopi, 2009)