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 swearing, cursing, or cussing, is the usage of notionally word taboo, offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion (such a ...
is inserted into a word, usually for intensification. It is similar to
tmesis
In its strictest sense, tmesis (; plural tmeses ; Ancient Greek: ''tmēsis'' "a cutting" < ''temnō'', "I cut") is the dividing of a word into two parts, with another word inserted between those parts, thus forming a , 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 profanity in the English language that 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 ...
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, urethr ...
bloody
''Bloody'', as an adjective or adverb, is an expletive attributive commonly used in British English, Irish English, New Zealand English and Australian English; it is also present in Canadian English, Indian English, Malaysian/Singaporean ...
'').
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
English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of Eng ...
.
A simple rule is that the insertion occurs at a
syllable
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...
boundary, usually just before the primary
stressed syllable
In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...
. 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 any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
boundaries taking precedence over stress. Counterexamples to this exception do exist: ''unbe-fuckin'-lievable''.
A more fundamental theory due to
John McCarthy John McCarthy may refer to:
Government
* John George MacCarthy (1829–1892), Member of Parliament for Mallow constituency, 1874–1880
* John McCarthy (Irish politician) (1862–1893), Member of Parliament for the Mid Tipperary constituency, ...
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
"Wouldn't It Be Loverly" is a popular song by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, written for the 1956 Broadway play ''My Fair Lady''.
The song is sung by Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and her street friends. It expresses Eliza's wish f ...
", a song from ''
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical theatre, musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story, based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'' and on the Pygmalion (1938 film), 1938 film ...
''
* "E-motherfucking-T!" in " Rosetta Stoned", a song by the band ''
Tool
A tool is an Physical object, object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many Tool use by animals, animals use simple tools, only human bei ...
''
* "Guaran-fucking-teed!" in " Contractor", a song by the band ''
Lamb of God
Lamb of God (; , ) is a Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at wikisource:Bible (American Standard)/John#1:29, John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, " ...
''
* "Viet-fuckin'-nam!" from
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard 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 proponent of the ...
(portrayed by
Richard D'Alessandro
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and i ...
) in ''
Forrest Gump
''Forrest Gump'' is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. An adaptation of the Forrest Gump (novel), 1986 novel by Winston Groom, the screenplay of the film is written by Eric Roth. It stars Tom Hanks in the title rol ...
''
* "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'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system
Places
* 3rd Street (di ...
'' by the band
Soft Machine
Soft Machine are an English Rock music, rock band from Canterbury, Kent. The band were formed in 1966 by Mike Ratledge, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen and Larry Nowlin. Soft Machine were central in the Canterbury scene; they became o ...
* "un-bloody-hinged" from the movie ''
Chasing Liberty
''Chasing Liberty'' is a 2004 romantic comedy film directed by Andy Cadiff, starring Mandy Moore and Matthew Goode and written by Derek Guiley and David Schneiderman.
The film is about the 18-year-old daughter of the President of the United Stat ...
''
* “Shomer-fucking-Shabbos” from the movie ''
The Big Lebowski
''The Big Lebowski'' () is a 1998 crime comedy film written, directed, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows the life of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), a Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler. He is assaulted ...
''
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. The main two categories are Morphological derivation, derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as ''un-'', ''-ation' ...