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A tmesis is abso-freakin-lutely the coolest feature of the English language you don't know exists

You might be using it and don't even know it.

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Believe or not, the tmesis has been around for thousands of years.

You might’ve never heard the word “tmesis,” but you’ve certainly heard one being used. Ever said something like “that’s a whole nother thing” or “no-friggin-way”? Congratulations, you’ve used a tmesis! As you can probably deduce, a tmesis is when a word is put smack dab in the middle of another word or phrase, usually to add emotional emphasis or comic effect. As speech writer Simon Lancaster put it, “Tmesis can make you sound inventive, anarchic, [and] amusing.”

The word itself comes from the ancient Greek word τμῆσις (tmêsis), meaning "a cutting.” In fact, Greek poet Homer used tmesis in The Odyssey. Throughout history, literary icons have been lovers of this rhetorical device. Take poet John Donne’s “In what-torn ship-so ever I embark," William Shakespeare’s “This is not Romeo, he is some-other-where.”

But the award for most impressive tmesis definitely goes to Mark Twain, who, for his essay “The Awful German Language,” wrote:

“The trunks being now ready, he DE-after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself-PARTED."

The tmesis is well-loved in today’s pop culture. Alan Gordon Partridge, a British parody character played by Steve Coogan, famously experimented with different ways to add "bloody" into the word "unbelievable," which became one of his most quotable moments among fans.

“Unbelievable. Un-bloody-believable. Unbe-bloody-lievable. Hang on, there’s one more. Unbelieva-bloody-ble.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Then there’s the animated character of Archer, who used the phrase "some-crazy-how.”

Or “Cinder-f**kin-rella” in Pretty Woman…

- YouTube www.youtube.com

And of course, we saved the most famous pop culture tmesis of all for last: “Legen-wait for it-dary.” Said many, many times by Neil Patrick Harris’ Barney from How I Met Your Mother.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Many use a tmesis to add in an expletive (again for emotional emphasis, and because it’s just fun), as with fan-bloody-tastic, guaran-damn-teed, abso-freakin-lutely Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ, boo-f**kin-hoo, back-ass-wards, un-f**king-real, in-f**king-credible. But there are plenty of clean and safe ones too, like hot-diggity-dog, and scrum-diddly-umptious!

And while the tmesis might seem strictly an English-language device, the concept of word splitting and insertion appears in other languages, such as German, Dutch, Catalan, Finnish, French, and Mandarin Chinese, to some extent.

Still, you gotta admit that the chaotic slicing-and-dicing-and-inserting aspect feels very, very English, does it not? Yet one more colloquial quirk that makes it so hard to fully master, but easy to appreciate.

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Mom's 'book report' approach is a brilliant way to deal with baffling Gen Alpha slang

"It's not that deep" is not an acceptable answer.

Photo credit: Canva

Many feel this generation's litany of nonsense words is something different.

I know it’s our lot in life as we get older to not jive with whatever slang the cool kids come up with, but the Gen Alpha lingo has simply crossed a line, hasn’t? Literally saying “6 7” to signify…nothing? Absurdism has its place, but are we, the ones charged with guiding our future leaders of tomorrow into adulthood, seriously gonna stand idly by and let that kind of brainrot slide? Nay, I say nay!

Thankfully, one mom has come up with a brilliant way to respond to what nonsense parents might hear coming out of their kids' mouths.

“What I've been doing with my two sons is I’ve been ‘book reporting’ them,” said content creator @Dewwwdropzz in a TikTok.

@dewwwdropzzz ♬ original sound - Dewwwdropzz

Essentially, what she means is that any time her kids come home and say something ludicrous like “6 7,” she has them do research on where the term actually came from. “We go on a journey together, and we decide to research what that means, where it comes from, why it happened, and where it stemmed from.”

So far, her kids haven’t rebutted with another Gen Alpha phrase, “It’s not that deep,” primarily because they are already being taught that everything is, in fact, interconnected in some way. However, if she ever does hear those words, you can bet that there will be a book report on it.

@juventus 6 7 🗣️‼️‼️‼️ #meme #67 #UCL #juventus #bvb (meme assets: @🦬🏹Первобытный🏹🦬 ♬ original sound - Sanity

This is a pretty cool idea, as it addresses questionable behavior without resorting to punishment, while also helping kids develop critical thinking, research skills, curiosity, and, perhaps most importantly, the wherewithal to not mindlessly parrot what they hear from others. All attributes that feel rather…vital, in this day and age, wouldn't you agree?

Other folks seemed to be on board with the concept and were eager to try it out themselves.

“This is probably the best thing you can do for your kid. I’m going to start this with mine.”

“I’m putting this in the back pocket for sure.”

Others, including parents and teachers, shared similar strategies they've already incorporated.

@mrcoachwhitehead and that’s what that means! #fyp #foryou #teachersoftiktok #education #highschoolteacher ♬ original sound - eazye_editz

"My rule is that they can't use words if they don't know the meaning," a commenter wrote. "This started after my oldest (8 at the time) came home saying ‘uwu.’ He heard it at school and thought it was a funny sound. Which is fine, but words have meaning. I don't want him hearing offensive words and causing someone harm just because they ‘sound cool.”

“If one of my students keeps interrupting saying these things I ask them to please stand up and explain what they are saying to the class, what it means, and why it is so vitally important that we needed to hear it right now," a teacher wrote. "If one actually knows we applaud because they not only knew but had the bravery to give an impromptu lesson. That has happened twice in 3 years. Usually they apologize and choose to stop.’”

Others were begging that the meaning “6 7” be explained. Again, people, it’s intentionally meaningless. Hilarious, right? Let’s just pray it goes the way of “cheugy.”

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British stand-up comic shows what English would sound like if we pronounced silent letters

Both eye-opening and hilarious.

Raph_PH/Wikimedia Commons

Michael McIntyre is a popular comedian from the U.K.

One of the struggles people have with learning English as a second language is the number of silent letters our language uses that don't seem to have much rhyme or reason. We are certainly not alone in using letters we don't pronounce, of course—French is famously filled with them, and Danish words apparently make liberal use of them as well. However, there's no question that silent letters can make language learning confusing for non-native speakers (and often for native speakers as well).

British comedian Michael McIntyre did a whole bit demonstrating what English would sound like if silent letters weren't silent. What if we pronounced the "b" in "subtle" or the "h" in "hour" or the "l" in "talk" and "walk"? When we start to pronounce the silent letters, we quickly see how many commonly used words have them, and the effect is both eye-opening and hilarious.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

When you speak a language that uses silent letters, you may not realize that there are languages that don't. For instance, this comment on the video—"As a Finn, I'm relieved to finally hear properly spoken English"— only makes sense when you know that Finnish is a strictly phonetic language, meaning the letters you see spelled out are pronounced the same way consistently. Spanish is pretty consistent with phonetics, especially compared to English, and Italian and Greek are as well.

So why does English utilize so many silent letters? As Merriam-Webster states, "Our language is a glutton, and it has taken words from an enormous number of other languages. Since we have words borrowed from languages that have different sound patterns, this results in English speakers pronouncing the words differently than in their languages of origin."

For instance, the word mnemonic has a silent "m" at the beginning, but it didn't used to be silent. The word came to English from the Greek through Latin, and the "m" actually was pronounced in it even as late as the 1800s. Over time, we just dropped it. The same applies to the silent "p" in words like "psychology" and "psalm." We used to pronounce it, and the French and Germans still do, but we've let the "p" go.

Other words came from Dutch or German with sounds that aren't standard phonetics in English, like the throat-clearing sound the "ch" combo makes in those languages (technically called a velar fricative). Words like yacht and night have that sound in the languages they came from, but since we don't do the fricative thing in English, we just dropped it.

What about the "l" in talk and walk, or would and should? In the former, the "l" affects the sound of the vowel, making it an "ah" sound instead of an "a" sound, as in "tack". In the latter, the "l" used to be pronounced, at least in the 1500s in refined speech, but at some point got dropped.


Interestingly, Merriam-Webster says could appears to be an anomaly among the -oulds, though: "It seems likely that could didn’t have the L in either spelling or pronunciation; notice that its root, can doesn’t have an L whereas shall and will (the roots of should and would) do. The thought is that the L in could was later added by analogy—rightly or wrongly—to make it better match with would and should."

Funny how language works.

How about knife and gnome? Apparently, those were pronounced several hundred years ago, but over time, people just stopped. There's not always a clear logical reason for such changes—sometimes it's just easier, and when enough people do it, a collective shift in pronunciation occurs. The same applies to the "w" in "wrap" and "write." They used to be pronounced, but isn't it just much easier on the lips to not form the "w" first when the sounds just blend together anyway?

silent letters, don't say it, english, language, golden girls There are a lot of letter sounds we don't say in English. Giphy

And yes, we also borrowed from the famously silent-letter-friendly French, as seen in words like receipt, debt, and indict. However, as Merriam-Webster points out, "These words entered English from French in the medieval period, but later scholars recognized their Latin origins and stuck in the missing p, b, and c, just to make the etymological relationship completely explicit. The way we pronounce these words to this day reflects their French heritage (while their spelling reflects their more distant Latin roots)."

One more fun fact: every letter of the alphabet is silent on occasion in the English language.

So there you have it. That's why silent letters abound. English is a mutt language in many ways, which has given us the delightful quirks and inconsistencies that make it a challenge to learn but oh so fun to joke about.

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Linguist clearly demonstrates how 'thinking is walking' in English and it's just so cool

You'll never see "by the way" and "of course" the same way again.

Photo credit: Tiktok.com/@etymologynerd

We use so many walking metaphors to describe thinking.

Language is fascinating. The way humans have come up with literally thousands of languages to communicate with one another, the grammatical structures we've concocted, the fact that we learn our native tongues so naturally, and how powerful words can be are all testaments to how cool language is. But when you drill down even further, language gets even cooler, and in ways that most of us aren't even aware of.

Linguist and self-professed "etymology nerd" Adam Aleksic shared a video on TikTok explaining how many common phrases we use for thinking directly reference walking. We often use metaphors in our speech, of course, but there are many that we likely don't even recognize as metaphors.

simu lu, hot ones, metaphor, language, linguistics We use metaphors all the time. Giphy

He starts with "by the way," which literally means being next to the way, or the path we're supposed to be on. It indicates that we're taking a mental detour from the path we were supposed to be on to introduce something unrelated. On the other hand, when we're talking about something that is actually on the path we're meant to be on, we say, "of course," which literally means "of the path."

"We use this metaphor all the time when we say, 'you're on track' or 'you're way off,' literally implying that you're not where you should be on the 'path' of thinking," Aleksic says, explaining that there's a greater metaphor at play here that "thinking is walking."

Once you see some examples, it becomes so clear. Our minds "race" or "wander," our thoughts "stray," and we "arrive" at conclusions.

@etymologynerd

"Via" just meant "road" in Latin #etymology #linguistics #language


"All this relies on physical motion, even though your mind is stationary," says Aleksic. "But it's from that idea—that thoughts can walk—that we can then go ahead and make statements about our own cognition. Like how I just used 'from'—originally a preposition for motion—and 'go ahead' to indicates continuation…Once you know thoughts can walk, you can 'follow' them down 'a line of thinking' until you 'come to' a resolution."

Even a saying as common as "Way to go!" is a metaphor indicating that you are on the correct path.

Once you start thinking about it, it's easy to come up with many more examples of how we conceptualize thinking as walking:

"Let's circle back."

"Walk me through your thinking."

"I'm backtracking here."

"The thought crossed my mind."

"No way."

"Let's move on."

SNL, saturday night live, let's move on, language, linguistics We use physical movement metaphors to conceptualize ideas. Giphy

Some commenters shared that their languages use similar metaphors:

"In Norwegian you can say 'du er på helt på bærtur' when someone is way off, and it means that you are on a berry trip—specifically blueberry trip."

"In Czech, you say btw as ''mimochodem', while mimo means outside and chodem means a step or a walk, so literally meaning by the walk."

"En passant in french is the same way. It's like 'I passed near this thought' while on my way to another thought."

There's something to be said for "thinking is walking" even beyond the metaphorical way we describe our thoughts. Many of the world's greatest thinkers were also obsessive walkers.

In 2014, Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz of Stanford University conducted a foundational series of studies on 176 people, mostly college students, to see if walking had any effect on different types of thinking. They found that participants who walked instead of sitting or being pushed in a wheelchair consistently came up with more creative responses on tests commonly used to measure creative thinking, such as thinking of alternate uses for common objects or coming up with original analogies to capture complex ideas. In one test, they had some people walk outside and others walk on a treadmill, neither of which seemed to make a difference. Wherever people walked, their answers were more creative than those who sat or were pushed in a wheelchair.

walking, thinking, language, linguistics, metaphors "Thinking is walking" and waking can also help us think. Photo credit: Canva

“Incorporating physical activity into our lives is not only beneficial for our hearts but our brains as well," Oppezzo said. "This research suggests an easy and productive way to weave it into certain work activities." Could we perhaps say, "walking is thinking" in addition to "thinking is walking"?

A 2021 study of students in Japan found similar correlations between walking and strong responses on alternate use tests that measure divergent thinking.

So it appears at least some types of thinking are enhanced by walking, which of course makes it all the more fun that we use so many walking metaphors to describe our thoughts.

You can follow Adam Aleksic for more on TikTok here or check out his book, Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, here.

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