Conference thebay::joyoflex

    I've always been fond of "obnoct"...as in "that really obnocts
    the hell out of me!"
    
    gwen
    

    Walt Kelly, the original author of "Pogo", would have his characters
    speak of things that happened way back in "nineteen-aught-seventeen"
    (for example).
    
    Bill
    

    The English rock/jazz group had a piece entitled:
    
    			Out-bloody-rageous
    
    					andrew

    Tmesis is alive and kicking in (honest) Portuguese. Pronouns that
    are the object of a verb in the future or conditional are just
    stuck into the verb: so `daria' (he would give) but `dar-me-ia'
    (he would give to me) and even `dar-me-lo-ia' (he would give 
    it to me); there may be elisions and contractions in there
    somewhere (Portuguese best before 1974) but the principle's
    there OK.
    
    English: I've often heard `hoo-bloody-ray'; less often
    `fan-bloody-tastic'.
    
    b

    But in gramatical use one usually uses "infix" rather than
    "tmesis".
    
    The Portuguese situation is suffixation: the suffixes are
    added to an unmodified root "dar".  Different classes of
    suffix have different positions relative to eachother.
            
    True infixing inserts the infix within the root, as in Arabic:
    one of the the forms a triliteral root "C-C-C" (where each "C"
    represents a different consonant) can take is "C-t-C-C".
    
    			-John Bishop

    G'day,
    heard on me (new) cb in Sydney on channel 8 (truckies' channel)
    
    
    
    (impolite example follows )
    
    
    
    
    holy - f*****g - moley
    
    
    
     derek with some apologies

    Re .5. Yes, infixing is more common.  But an infix doesn't
    decline, does it? - I think that's the difference, though
    whatever the difference is, it's pretty subtle: I'm prepared
    to believe any plausible distinction (although I'm dubious
    about one based purely on academic context: I've met both
    words, in several contexts, and I believe there's a distinction
    of meaning). An infix may (I suppose) get modified after it's been 
    infixed.
    
    The Portuguese situation is not suffixation (although you're right
    that the object pronoun is tacked onto the end of something that
    looks and feels like an infinitive): whatever the derivation, whatever
    the etymology, there's a word (e.g. `daria') and the pronoun gets
    shoved into the middle of it - I've never seen any Portuguese grammar,
    or any book on Romance Philology, that calls this anything but tmesis.
    
    Incidentally, .5 mentioned the "unmodified root `dar'"; that's true
    of this example, which I chose because the cases where modification
    _does_ occur had disappeared in the mists of time: `faria' becomes
    `f�-me-ia' or something like it.
    
    Ho hum.  Paint pots here I come, for the next ten days. Happy
    Christmas.
    
    b

    Does the exclamation "Jesus H. Christ!" qualify?
    
    My apologies in advance to any who might take offense.
    
    len.
    

    Re .2 (Bill):
    
    >Walt Kelly, the original author of "Pogo", would have his characters
    >speak of things that happened way back in "nineteen-aught-seventeen"
    >(for example).
     
    That doesn't exactly qualify.  That's a joke, not originally by
    Kelly, as it happens, that is an absurd extension of a mannerism.
    
    The origin was this:  "aught" is a variation of "naught," meaning
    "oh," or "zero."  An old timer might say "nineteen oh seven," for
    the year 1907.  Or he might say "nineteen-aught-seven."  Now logically,
    the most such dates in any period should be ten [nineteen-aught-aught
    to nineteen-aught-nine]; carrying it onwards to, say, "nineteen-aught-
    forty nine," is just going from the ordinary to the absurd.
    
    Re .6 (Derek):
    
    Your example,
    
    Holy - [expletive as adverb] - Moly might not be a pure infix.
    "Holy moly!" was an expression used by Billy Batson and his alter
    state, Captain Marvel [the _real_ one] in the Fawcett Publication
    publications (and later the D.C. _Shazam!_ comics).  It was also
    used by Mary Batson (Mary Marvel) and less frequently by Freddy
    Freeman (Captain Marvel, Jr.)  [Hoppy, the Marvel Bunny, who also
    could become super-powered by "Shazam!"ming, used the milder
    expression, "Golly Wolly"; but then, Hoppy was aimed for _little_
    children.]
    
    The whole thing derives from _The Odyssey," where Odyessus is given
    "the magic herb, Moly," so that Circe wouldn't be able to change
    _him_ into a swine, as she's done to others.  To differentiate
    this special magic version from common Moly (_Moly vulgaris_),
    I suppose C. C. Beck upped it to "holy," though it wasn't, particularly.
    [Of course, in the expression, "Holy cow!" one might make the same
    observation about the bovine.]

    Re .8 (len):
    
    No offense taken.  The "H" here seems to stand for a middle name
    (I've heard "Howard" used).  It (mistakenly) assumes that "Christ"
    is the last name, when it really means "the Anointed One."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    I know this doesn't belong here but does anyone have any thoughts on
    the origin of "a buck two-eighty"?
    
    CQ

re .10

Well, I've never heard of a buck, two-eighty, but I have heard of a
buck, three fifty-two.   It would be reasonable to assume it came from
the very, very old days, when things were priced in mills rather than in
cents.  (There was a time when there were circulating half-cents (5
mills), and there were one-mill tokens in use during World War II (er,
I've seen them, but I was a little to young to remember seeing them
used).)  

So a buck, two-eighty may mean $1.280, or a buck, twenty-eight, and
a buck, three fifty-two, $1.352, or five for $6.76.

Dave C.

    G'day, and a Happy New Year...
    
    Hmmm re Holy Moly now why do I have this nagging feeling that this is a
    corruption of Holy Moses? 
    
    derek

	Are split infinitives tmetic then?   They seem the most common
infix modification in English.

Yours in fixation,
Sylow P Subgroup.

    
    Re .12 (Derek):
    
    >Hmmm re Holy Moly now why do I have this nagging feeling that this is a
    >corruption of Holy Moses? 
     
    Lack of familiarity with herbology?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    G'day,
    
    More I suspect due to not having read "The Odyssey" in full - though
    had your note been dated April 1, I might have suspected something
    deeper......    :-)
    
    Now let me see...
    list of books to read...
    
    War and Peace,
    The Odyssey
    Noddy Builds a Garage
    Captain Marvel
    ...........
    Mary Throgmortons Guide to Growing Herbs in the Kitchen Garden
    
    
    
    derek
    

    re .7, "word", "faria" -> "f�meia", etc.
    
    You shouldn't rely on the lexigraphical concept of "word"
    as a linguistic entity.  "In the middle of the word" may
    be the easiest way to describe one pairing of grammatical
    forms, but not the way most connected to the semantics.
    
    Historically, the Romance languages slap suffixes on roots
    (they are inflecting), and in some cases slap declinable roots
    on (they are also aggultinating).  The suffixes have a distinct
    order, and some suffixes include a null version. This means that 
    pairs can be constructed which look like infixing.
    
    As an artificial example, if the rule is "verb-object-subject",
    and the null object or subject means third person singular,
    then "<scratch>-<>-<I>" will seem to have no infix when compared
    to "<scratch>-<you>-<I>".
    
    Further, if contextual modifications are made to the root or
    the suffix (e.g. "far" becomes "f�" before "m" {as another
    contrived example}) the grammatical base may be obscured.
    
    An interesting example is the French future tense--historically
    it is <infinitive>-<inflected form of "have">, but now looks like
    just another a suffix due to blurring of the border.
    
    Now, academic grammer is not how you want to teach a language, and
    I do not know Portuguese.  But my training leads me to believe
    that no in-fixing is going on in the example given.
    
    		-John Bishop

    �    I do not know Portuguese.  But my training leads me to believe
    �	 that no in-fixing is going on in the example given.
    
    My training leads me to agree.  That's why I called it tmesis.
    
    b