Unusual words

As some of my previous posts have probably shown, I love facts about words!

Recently I was looking something up on an online thesaurus  (Isn't 'thesaurus' an intriguing word?  If you look it up, you'll discover that it is used to name:

a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially : a book of words and their synonyms

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thesaurus

and that it started being used with this meaning around 1823 :

thesaurus (n.) 

 "treasury, storehouse," from L. thesaurus "treasury, treasure," from Gk. thesauros "a treasure, treasury, storehouse, chest," from root of tithenai "to put, to place." The meaning "encyclopedia filled with information" is from 1840, but existed earlier as thesaurarie (1590s), used as a title by early dictionary compilers. Meaning "collection of words arranged according to sense" is first attested 1852 in Roget's title. Thesaur is attested in Middle English with the meaning "treasure" (15c.-16c.).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=thesaurus

Back to the point, Anne!  

While I was looking on the reference.com website, I came across an intriguing slideshow:  

Five English words that are utterly unique.    http://dict.reference.com/slideshow/unique_words)

I learnt a new word from this slideshow:

http://nicolaarmsterdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/tmesis.jpg

 The sole term in the English language to begin with Tm- has an unusual meaning to match. Tmesis is the insertion of one or more words between the words that make up a compound phrase. For example: "what-so-ever" inserted in the middle of "whatever.

This then inspired me to find more examples of tmesis.

Representative English examples of the use of tmesis for added emphasis include:

• Wh-words, words usually beginning with wh- that can be used as interrogative words, can also be used as subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns. When they express indefiniteness using the suffix -ever they can have the intensifier so inserted between the two parts (the base word and the indefinitizer ever) to emphasize the indefiniteness: whatsoever, whosoever, whomsoever, whosesoever, wheresoever, whensoever, howsoever. Unlike the following examples, these are considered standard words in the language.
• "Abso-fuckin-lutely" in which an expletive or profanity is inserted.
• "Guaran-damn-tee" in which an expletive or profanity is inserted for humor and/or emphasis.
• "La-dee-freakin'-da", a variation of the above in which a less offensive infix is substituted.
• "Wel-diddly-elcome", a signature phrase of fictional character Ned Flanders', where a nonsense word is inserted. Note the reduplication of part of the host word (as opposed to "wel-diddly-come").
• "Any-old-how", in which the divisibility of "anything" (as in "any old thing") is mimicked with the usually indivisible "anyhow".
• "A-whole-nother", in which another (an+other) is reanalyzed as a+nother.
• "Legen-wait for it-dary", in which the phrase "wait for it" is inserted into the word Legendary.
• "Abso-bloody-exactly", a humorous misuse of infixation.
• "Ri-goddamn-diculous", as pronounced by John Wayne, drunkenly addressing a college R.O.T.C. group on the subject of patriotism, and later by Frank Vitchard (Luke Wilson) in Anchorman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmesis

Any-old-way, that's the end of this post!