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, for the most part for accentuation or comic impact. The descriptive word structure isâ tmetic. Identified with tmesis is synchesis, the disordering of word request in an articulation. Etymology: From the Greek, a cutting Pronunciation:â (te-)ME-sister Additionally Known As: infix, tumbarumba (Australia) Models and Observations Abso-mother truckin' lutely! I said triumphantly as I intellectually crossed my fingers. (Victoria Laurie, A Vision of Murder. Seal, 2005)Goodbye, Piccadilly. Goodbye, Leicester wicked Square. (James Marsters as Spike in Becoming: Part 2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1998)Whoopdee-damn-doo, Bruce thought. At most papers, general task journalists were newsroom sovereignty, given the most significant stories. At the East Lauderdale Tattler, they were an indent above janitors, and troubled with humble assignments . . .. (Ken Kaye, Final Revenge. AuthorHouse, 2008)To convince individuals to continue viewing [the TV program Zoo Quest], [David] Attenborough gave the arrangement a goal, 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 solic ited, in a slick bit of tmesis, on the off chance that he was ever going to get that Picafartees gymno-bleeding cephalus, he realized it had stopped 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 seal 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 beautiful sitting abso-blossoming lutely still (A. Lerner and F. Lowe, My Fair Lady). Or then again See his windlilycockslaced (G.M. Hopkins, Harry Plowman). Tmesis is additionally normally utilized as far as British slang, for example, hoo-wicked beam. (A. Quinn, Tmesis. Reference book of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. by T. Enos. Taylor Francis, 1996)Its a kind of long cocktailhe got th e recipe off a barman in Marrakesh or some-grisly where. (Kingsley Amis, Take a Girl Like You, 1960) I summoned up the mental 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 savage knew about his utilization of tmesis, the inclusion 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 appreciated the distributers request that his paper never become the hostage of any gathering or ideological group. Indegoddamnpendent was Pulitzers one of a kind 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 inconsiderate you cant simply stick it any old where. We know this in light of the fact that abso-cracking lutely is fine however stomach muscle cracking solutely or outright cracking ly isn't. Regardless of whether its in a word, an expression, or a name-you stick the insistent expansion directly before a focused on syllable, as a rule 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 musicality of what were embeddings. Regarding life, what to think about it, that is the issue is thought of as measured rhyming, however 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 . . . Be that as it may, if 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 qualifier, happens among to and the infinitival type of an action word. Various marks have been utilized to name this specific requesting of English, spiked qualifier or parted infinitive among others, yet the term split infinitive has in the end supplanted every one of its antecedents (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)