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From: rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin)
Subject: Re: dystmesis (was Re: Tendency of Inflections to Disappear - Why?)
Message-ID: <rdd-2707961910300001@dmn1-13.usa1.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 19:10:30 -0500
References: <4suk93$pob@carrera.intergate.bc.ca> <4sv017$2oa@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> <4t5nj1$peo@netsrv2.spss.com> <4taeev$8cr@brachio.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE> <rdd-2607961317360001@dmn1-39.usa1.com> <4tblvo$fvs@news3.digex.net>
Lines: 27

In article <4tblvo$fvs@news3.digex.net>, kcivey@cpcug.org (Keith C. Ivey) wrote:

> rdd@usa1.com (Aaron J. Dinkin) wrote:
> >anno4000@lublin.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE (Anno Siegel) wrote:
> 
> >> Unbe-fuckin-lievable!
> 
> >That's called dystmesis. So is "a whole nother story".
> 
> I've never heard it called anything but just plain "tmesis", and
> _Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary_, _The American
> Heritage Dictionary_ (3rd ed.), and _The Oxford Companion to the
> English Language_ (which gives the example "abso-blooming-
> lutely") seem to agree.
> 
> Are dystmesis and eutmesis two types of tmesis?  And if so,
> what's the difference?

Well, "dystmesis" is tmesis between two parts of a word where separation
would not "properly" occur, as in the middle of a morpheme. I've never
heard of "eutmesis", but K. Barker's linguistic phenomena web site (whose
URL I don't have handy but I'll post it when I can) backs me up on "dys-",
and the examples he gives are in fact the identical ones used by Anno and
me at the top of this post.

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

