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by z3c0 1455 days ago
"Fucking" is the only English "infix" that I know of, where it can be inserted inside of words like "abso-fucking-lutely". The only other is "freaking", which is a just euphemism for the former.

Edit: American English, I should say. The Brits have "bloody".

4 comments

The linguistic “process” that allows this is called “expletive infixation” and it, as you might guess from the name, only works with swears.

There’s some neat work on where within the original word you can add them, made all the funnier by hearing people dispassionately dropping strings of f-bombs “to see what works”.

Here’s a classic paper on it: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...

> only works with swears

It also works with "diddly" which isn't.

It's intersting what information can be found out there in this world, even about something as diddly.

https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/wendell.kimper/...

There's a song that goes, "Wouldn't it be loverly sittin' abso-bloomin'-lutely still?" Still just a euphemism, but an example that can be used with children who lack self-control with their language.
IME 'fucking' is used very often in words, considerably more than 'bloody' - in British Fucking English.
I say back-asswords instead of ass backwards.
I've most commonly heard it said, "bass-ackward," in order to remove the "ass" as a standalone syllable...