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#34283 - 07/02/01 02:42 PM Re: words within words
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Posts: 13,803 some resources now assign the rhetorical figure tmesis to this kind of affix.
But then we see from the Goldwyn quote* that, while tmesis may be necessary for infixing, infixing is not required for tmesis.
*"In two words, im possible." --Samuel Goldwyn
#34284 - 07/03/01 04:29 AM Re: words within words
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Jakarta In reply to:some resources now assign the rhetorical figure tmesis to this kind of affix
According to The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar it's the other way round. Tmesis is the older term and infix the more recent.
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#34285 - 07/03/01 06:48 PM Re: words within words
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Here's a link with some nice information about tmesis and related words
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/TMESIS.HTM
#34286 - 07/03/01 06:58 PM Re: words within words
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Posts: 13,803 Good to know someone else is going through the same Quotation Mark Paranoia
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#34287 - 07/03/01 07:20 PM Re: t flipping mesis: which is it?
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Posts: 13,803 According to Dr. Bill's source (http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Figures/TMESIS.HTM) tmesis is interjecting a word or phrase between parts of a compound word...
According to tsuwm's source (http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/archive/1999/05/26.html) it's the act of splitting the word or words apart.
So which is it?
Don't make me use my OED
#34288 - 07/03/01 07:48 PM Re: t flipping mesis: which is it?
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Posts: 13,858 Then tsuwm's source seems a bit remiss. Why would you just split a word, and then leave it that way?
First you split, and then you insert. No ribaldry about it.
#34289 - 07/04/01 01:01 AM Re: words within words
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Rio Grande, Cape May County, N... those Nattering Nabobs of Negativism
Thanks, Spiro T.!...the words of a true Vice President!Well, with that kind of support I will no longer worry about erasing the miles of Quotations from my tapes! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
#34290 - 07/04/01 02:02 PM Re: t flipping mesis: which is it?
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Posts: 13,803 Why would you just split a word, and then leave it that way? First you split, and then you insert.
Ah, but they are two separate processes and the Goldwyn quote given in tsuwm's link does only the former.
Not to mention that the original Greek means an "act of cutting".
Or, that is, to quote our own ledasdottir and an early document cited by David Crystal in his Encyclopedia of the English Language a nother*, close quote, issue.
*Once again Ænigma sides with you, so I rest my case.
#34291 - 02/05/04 02:43 PM Re: t flipping mesis: which is it?
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California Tmesis orignally refered to splitting preverbs (look like prepositions) from verbs. Greek, Sanskrit, and German do this. The split isn't really interesting on its own, but provides a slot for other words to interpose themselves. Tmesis comes from the same root as atom 'indivisible' (literally 'uncut').
#34292 - 02/05/04 05:30 PM Re: t flipping mesis: which is it?
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Vermont my god. Dr. Bill was only a veteran...
thanks for the update, jheemster!
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