I've been using Tmesis without knowing it

One of Moliere's characters expressed surprise when told that he had been speaking prose. I have discovered this morning that I have been using Tmesis without realizing it.

Tmesis (from Ancient Greek τμῆσις tmēsis, "a cutting" < τέμνω temnō, "I cut") is a linguistic phenomenon or figure of speech in which a word is separated into two parts, with other words occurring between them.

Tmesis is found as a poetic or rhetorical device in classical Latin poetry, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses. Words such as circumdare, to surround, are split apart with other words of the sentence in between, e.g. circum virum dant: "they surround the man".

It is also referred to as tumbarumba, possibly due to the popularity of tmesis in Australian speech (Tumbarumba being an Australian town), or possibly due to the poem "Tumba Bloody Rumba" by John O'Grady, which includes several tmeses including "Tumba-bloody-rumba", "e-bloody-nough", and "kanga-bloody-roos".

Probably the most common modern examples of Tmesis are "expletive infixations." I guaran-damn-tee you won't find a longer list than the one in Wikipedia.


I found "tmesis" in a list the BBC compiled when they asked readers to send in their favorite words. Here's a selection of some of the others, with the readers' definitions:

Poodle-faker - a young man too much given to taking tea with ladies.

Mallemaroking - the carousing of seamen in icebound ships.

Spanghew - to cause (esp. a toad or frog) to fly into the air off the end of a stick.

Scrimshanker - one who accepts neither responsibility nor work.

Petrichor - the sweet smell of rain on dry earth.

Maieutic - pertaining to intellectual midwifery.

Metanoia - the act or process of changing one's mind or way of life.

Chatoyant - something that glows from deep within, like a cat's eye (chat), or star sapphires, or highly polished hard woods.