A colleague of mine recently asked me a question for which I have not been able to find an answer, so, I thought I would consult the definitive experts on words.

I know there is a term for just about everything, but, this one has eluded me.
Perhaps I'm using the incorrect search parameters, but, it has to do with a particular vernacular whereupon the speaker will insert a word inside an otherwise complete word. An example might be, "Well, that's a-whole-nother issue", the word "whole" being inserted inside the word "another".

Is there a name for this construct? If not, perhaps there should be, since , at least in American English, it appears to be quite common.

Thanks,

It's usually called tmesis (link), although the term originally meant something different in Classical Greek.

If you read the Wikipedia entry you'll note that [l]inguists sometimes describe tmesis as a form of infixation.

infixation

Yes, but I do not. I use -fixation in a morphological context. To my mind, something different is going on with the abso-bloody-lutely type phenomena. What gets infixed is a morph (cf. nasal presents in Greek and Sanskrit), not an independent word. What's going in in (modern) tmesis seems more like a rhetorical device than a morphological process. But, hey, that's just me!

then there's dystmesis (ON = 2)

[fr. Gk. tmesis, act of cutting + dys-, bad]
defined variously as: a) a synonym for tmesis;
b) tmesis at syllable boundaries, as opposed to
between parts of a compound; c) separation at
an inappropriate or unlikely position

considering the lexemes, it seems like the actual
meaning should be closer to the last of these;
e.g., unbefreakinglievable (as opposed to the
tmesis of unfreakingbelievable).

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edit: years back, when I offered up tmesis as the
answer to this same question, it was met with some
measure of increscoffingdulity; but I note that
tmesis now has an ON of 25!