Is tmesis often used in Spanish?

Question

In English it's not uncommon to hear expressions such as:

Fan-blinking-tastic, abso-blinking-lutely, unbe-blinking-lievable.

Often, obviously, 'stronger' words than blinking are used.

Does this happen in Spanish and if so, is it more prevalent in some countries?

Interesting question! - mapletw, Dec 29, 2010

Answer 1

Yes, it does happen, at least in México, but you have to (just as in english) have a very good command of the language in order to use it. In spanish there are as many "blink" words as there are in English, and probably a few more just to round out the vocabulary. Mexicans are wonderful at cursing!

Hey Paco, would you offer some examples of what words are tmesified? Alex - afowen, Dec 29, 2010

MMost of them shouldn't be listed here ;) - lorenzo9, Dec 29, 2010

I mean the words into which you might insert the invective :-) - afowen, Dec 29, 2010

Damas y caballeros: these "tmesified" words can, by no means be revealed in this honorable forum ! :-) - pacofinkler, Dec 29, 2010

Pues, ¿me las revelas en un MP dehonoroso porfa? Quiero entender... - afowen, Dec 30, 2010

¿Y a mí tambien? Gracias. - jtaniel, Nov 13, 2015

Answer 2

I don't think that in Spain this is very usual, a word like impresúpersionante seems to me to be something very difficult to digest. Besides, we have not a jocker-word like $&%k.

That is, probably, because we have the -ísimo as sufix for emphasizing, as well as several prefixs like requete, súper, extra... and adverbs like "muy". There are lots of possibilities! Who could choose impresúpersionante?

One of them -that we like it very much- is putting up a -mente adverb before the noun, this option gives much strength to any speech.

Impresionantísimo

Requeteimpresionante.

.....mente impresionante.

Answer 3

Good question.

I use these types of words in English a lot, e.g., You are un - *!&**¡# - believable! What a piece of work!

Answer 4

Soy de España, y no creo que haya tmesis en Spanish just like you say "Fan-blinking-tastic," aunque "blinking" sería f'ing, right? We have a lot of curse words of our own, but it is fun to make tmesis en English. I just don't know how to know when to cut the original word to insert the "blinking" part! Sometimes one can say a thing like: "no hay una put@ cosa peor que... So you no add the word inside word like in English tmesis. You add the curse between words, no INSIDE words. This is closest I can think to answer your question.

Sorry about English.

Welcome to SpanishDict. This is a thread from 2010. If you intend to supply answers, you need to complete your profile. - rac1, Nov 14, 2015

Answer 5

I had know idea there was a word for that. The things I learn on this site!

Yes, there's a whole article on tmesis in Wikipedia. - pesta, Dec 29, 2010

Answer 6

Yep, Mexican Spanish has a lot of two or three syllable words that are used just like that. They don't seem to be used here in Ecuador though.