Talk:Infix

I'm curious about the chemical infixes. How are they used? Examples? Quincy 07:12, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How the Chemical Infixes Are Used

I quote from Infix itself:

English has only a few arcane infixes that are listed in dictionaries. Chemical nomenclature includes the minuscule infixes -pe-, signifying complete hydrogenation (from piperidine) and -et- (from ethyl), signifying the ethyl radical C2H5. Thus, from picoline, we can derive pipecoline and from lutidine, we can derive lupetidine; from phenidine, we can derive phenetidine. One word that contains -et- but is not a word when the -et- is removed is xanthoxyletin.

The latter comment has been removed. If ?xanthoxyl is not a word, then xanthoxyletin is not an example of an infix, as is claimed now. kwami 12:27, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation??????

This page is said to be a disambiguation page, however, it gives full meanings of both words without links to seperate sectiopns for each. Surely it is NOT a disambiguation page. Should the tage be removoed? I'm so convinced I HAVE removed it. Fork me 11:25, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shiznit

Is that an infix? I heard it was an abbreviation of "shit isn't it", as in "that's the shit, isn't it?" ("that's the shiznit?") VolatileChemical 03:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of where it came from, if -izn- is inserted into other words where it doesn't have such a history, then it's become an infix. The only question would be its staying power in the English language, which is one reason why slang doesn't always get a lot of respect. kwami 19:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The -ma- Infix

[...] as in sophistimacated, saxomaphone, and edumacation

I think this is misdiagnosed as an infix, and is in fact formed in imitation of whadyamacallit - unless that is itself an infix.

Nuttyskin 01:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Same response as for shiznit: if that's where it's come from (and no, what-you-may-call-it is a lexicalized clause, no infixes), then we are in the lucky position of knowing the history of infixing morphology in English. It's not uncommon for a common word or set phrase to be imitated in other words, but the fact remains that words are altered by putting a morpheme (ma) inside them rather than at the end, which is all an infix is. Also, I doubt that most people who do this have any awareness of the historical origins of what they're doing. kwami 12:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another English Infix

In a fundamentals of language structures class a few years ago the professor cited "abso-f--kin-lutely" or "fan-f--ki-tastic" as examples of f--k as an infix in English. It seems like this case should be noted as it is certainly well used by English speakers. Crazynorvegian 03:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's already there. kwami 06:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Infixes in English Irregular Nouns and Verbs

The vowel infixes change according to tense or plural> Examples:

 English Irregular Verbs:
   (pres.) (past)
   write → wrote
   swim → swam
   break → broke
   awake → woke
 English Irregular Nouns:
   (sing.) (plur.)
    man → men
    tooth → teeth  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mozwa (talk • contribs) 00:55, 12 April 2010 (UTC) Mozwa (talk) 03:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pianissimo

Does the word "pianissimo" count as an example of an infix in English? It's borrowed from Italian, but it appears in English dictionaries, so it certainly should count as an English word. It's formed from the adjective "piano", with the string "-issim-" inserted. If it does count, I suggest we mention the word "pianissimo" in this article, as another example of an infix in English. Navigatr85 04:11, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

No, because although pianissimo is an English word, <issim> by itself isn't an affix in English. It's merely borrowed Italian morphology, and is actually a suffix, as in generalissimo. There just aren't that many infixes in European languages. kwami (talk) 05:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A Whole 'Nother

Would the phraise "a whole 'nother" be an example of an infix, where whole is placed in between another. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.254.238 (talk) 04:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that was by me. I forgot to sign in. Richardkselby (talk) 04:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usually when a word is inserted rather than an affix, it's called tmesis. But I think what's going on here is that an other has been jokingly reanalyzed as a nother, and the rest is just a normal phrase. I've heard roughly similar things with napple for apple. kwami (talk) 06:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to take it out. It's just a variant of a whole other. kwami (talk) 09:49, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Band?

No mention of the J-rock band Infix? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Victory_Gundam - theme song "Winners Forever". 174.46.172.13 (talk) 07:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Passerby, Passersby

I think this qualifies as a true, non-slang, infix. Passerby started as a compound hyphenated word, where the first word of the pair was pluralized as passers-by. The Penguin Dictionary of English Grammar has this to say:

"English has no true infixes, but the plural suffix -s behaves something like an infix in unusual plurals like passers-by and mothers-in-law." http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/infixterm.htm

I would note however that the single word form passerby is now more common in English language searches than passer-by and that both Merriam-Webster and Oxford list passerby as a proper word, not a slang form of a hyphenated compound word. Thoughts? Shawn (talk) 02:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

slightly better example?

I think "abso-bloody-lutely" is a better example of an infix in English than "un-fucking-believable", if only for the fact that "bloody" is less vulgar than "fucking". besides, "un-fucking-believable" is really just "believable" with two prefixes. Change it? 173.180.24.7 (talk) 07:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

the Arabic example - not sure about it

I think someone misunderstood the Arabic verb system. It is weird to claim that the verb form "iftaʻala" is a result of <t> infix with epentetic . Examining the present form "yaftaʻilu" reinforces the view of it as an indepndant verb form. Just like Hebrew "Hitpa'el". Think about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.235.119.74 (talk) 15:20, 30 March 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Constructed languages?
I think that a section on infixes in constructed languages would help, especially considering the fact that the Na'vi language has a complete tense and mood system based on infixes.