插词法 tmesis.doc

The Peculiar Integration Of The Adjectival Word POSTED ON AUGUST 13, 2012 BY LARRY KARP By Jeanne MatthewsIm in love with tmesis. I dont mean the rock band from Arkansas. Im talking about the custom of inserting one word into another for emphasis. I have been a lover of tmesis since my first trip to Australia. Aussies are known for their colorful, cheeky slang. But when it comes to slinging around tmeses, they are abso-bloody-lutely in a class by themselves. “Bloody” has been Australias favorite adjective since the 1890s. Its use in everyday speech is so common that no one regards it as swearing. It is salted as liberally into the vernacular of prime ministers as it is into the parlance of the blokes in the pub. “Bloody” imparts a special intensity to whatever is being described. “The PMs speech was a bloody beaut.” Or, “If that bloody ref thought the bloody ball went backwards, hes the only bloody bloke in Brisbane who did.” One aspiring comedian even adopted Bloody as his middle name. And Aussies constantly split up compound words with “bloody” so that it becomes a sort of verbal hyphen.Theres a town in New South Wales named Tumbarumba which the Australian writer, John OGrady immortalized in a poem called “Tumba Bloody Rumba.” The funniest bit occurs when a bloke tells a bunch of drongos at the bar that he has just repaid the quid he owed his mate.Couldve used the thing me bloody self. Been off the bloody booze,Up at Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin kanga-bloody-roos.A tour-de-bloody-force, if you ask me. But leave it to the linguists. The fact that tmesis is the only word in the English language (apart from its plural) that begins with a tm wasnt e-bloody-nough to suit them, as OGrady would say. They turned up their noses at tmesis and appropriated “tumbarumba” as the high-fa-bloody-lutin technical term. I suppose they think it fosters the illusion that the same people who inflicted upon us the linguistic terms hapax legomenon and hendiadys have a sense of humor. Nobodys bloody buying that notion. I guaran-damn-tee it.“Integrating the adjectival word” la OGrady can become habit forming. When I returned from my vocabulary-building visit down under, I was gung-bloody-ho for the tmesis. Its so much fun there ought to be a verb to tmesify. Maybe one day Ill create a character whose ob-gaga-sessive tmesifying drives the rest of the cast wild. Mind now, you cant just lob your intensifier into a word any-old-where. It wants to jump off the tongue before the stressed syllable, with oomph. Only a drongo would say Tum-bloody-ba-rumba or kang-bloody-a-roos.The interjected adjective doesnt have to be bloody naughty, of course. The King James Bible is rife with tmeses. This is the place where Christ will come as will here-appear-after. And He shall be punished, what-man-soever appear. True, theres not much of an emphatic quality to those examples. In fact, they may lean more toward synchesis. Synchesis is classified as a whole-nother-thing by the linguists. Basically, it means the jumbling of word order. Yet setteth he the poor man on high from affliction. Thats the kind of mumbo-barking-jumbo that Old Testament prophets spouted like broken fire hydrants. And poets are huge fans of the form. They break up words willy-spanking-nilly in order to sound odd and poetic.For those of you with an aptitude for invention, a writer named Tom Evans is offering a free signed copy of his book, “The Art and Science of Light Bulb Moments,” to the person who concocts the funniest tmesis and posts it in a comment on his blog. The competition is open for the rest of this year, so theres plenty of time to coin the next catchword du jour. Entries to date include marvel-scrummy-lous and stu-bleeding-pendous. Without being overly critical, it seems to me theres ample room for improvement.For those of you who, like me, are always mulling new ideas on how to market your books, Evans may have hit upon the sales booster weve all been looking for. He has staked out the territory of tmesis as his own, but there are other linguistic phenomena to reckon with. Metonomy, for example. Donald Westlake was a master of metonomy, which is calling a thing or a person by another, closely-associated name. In the O.J. Bar & Grill where Dortmunder and the gang meet to plan their next caper, the bartender refers to the customers by their drinks. The bourbon, the other bourbon, the beer and salt, the red wine and vodka. Maybe I could offer a signed copy of “Bonereapers,” my latest Dinah Pelerin mystery, to the person who devises the cleverest metonymn for each of my characters.Contest possibilities in the linguistic line abound. Catachresis, epigesis, metalepsis. But only a bloody linguist can get excited about epi-bloody-g