Expletive infixation is a process by which an
expletive
Expletive may refer to:
* Expletive (linguistics), a word or phrase that is not needed to express the basic meaning of the sentence
*Expletive pronoun, a pronoun used as subject or other verb argument that is meaningless but syntactically required
...
or
profanity
Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...
is inserted into a word, usually for intensification. It is similar to
tmesis, but not all instances are covered by the usual definition of ''tmesis'' because the words are not necessarily
compounds.
The most commonly inserted English expletives are adjectival: either participles (''
fuck
''Fuck'' is an English-language expletive. It often refers to the act of sexual intercourse, but is also commonly used as an intensifier or to convey disdain. While its origin is obscure, it is usually considered to be first attested to ar ...
ing'', ''mother-fucking'', ''freaking'', ''blooming'', ''
bleeding
Bleeding, hemorrhage, haemorrhage or blood loss, is blood escaping from the circulatory system from damaged blood vessels. Bleeding can occur internally, or externally either through a natural opening such as the mouth, nose, ear, urethra, vag ...
'', ''
damned'', ''wretched'') or adjectives (''
bloody'').
Rules of formation in English
Judgments of which formations of expletive infixation are acceptable are remarkably consistent.
This suggests that the rules for the placement of the expletive are not arbitrary, but instead derive from fundamental aspects of
English phonology
Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar (but not identical) phonological system. Amo ...
.
A simple rule is that the insertion occurs at a
syllable boundary, usually just before the primary
stressed syllable.
Thus, one hears ''abso-fuckin'-lutely'' rather than *''ab-fuckin'-solutely''. This rule is insufficient to describe examples such as ''un-fuckin'-believable'', however, so that some modifications to this rule are proposed, such as
morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone ar ...
boundaries taking precedence over stress. Counterexamples to this exception do exist: ''unbe-fuckin'-lievable''.
A more fundamental theory due to
John McCarthy is based on
prosody.
Its basic principle is that "the metrical stress tree of the host is minimally restructured to accommodate the stress tree of the infix". For example, although ''unbelievable'' and ''irresponsible'' have identical stress patterns and the first syllable of each is a separate morpheme, the preferred insertion points are different: ''un-fuckin'-believable'', but ''irre-fuckin'-sponsible''. McCarthy explains this by saying they have different prosodic structures: un(be((lieva)ble)) but (irre)((sponsi)ble). The infix cannot fall between the syllables ''ir'' and ''re'' because they form a single
prosodic foot.
Examples in popular culture
* "abso-bloomin'-lutely" in "
Wouldn't It Be Loverly", a song from ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical theatre, musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flowe ...
''
* "Viet-fuckin'-nam!" from
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading propone ...
(portrayed by
Richard D'Alessandro) in ''
Forrest Gump
''Forrest Gump'' is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth. It is based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom and stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson ...
''
* "Out-bloody-rageous", the title of a track in the album ''
Third
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (disambiguation)
* Third Avenue (disambiguation)
* Hi ...
'' by the band
Soft Machine
Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge (keyboards, 1966–1976), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals, 1966–1971), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals, 1966–1968) and Daevid Allen (guitar, 1966– ...
* "un-bloody-hinged" from the movie ''
Chasing Liberty''
See also
*
Affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They ...
References
External links
Discussion of where to properly insert the expletive*
{{Profanity
Infixes
Profanity