[Ads-l] dead fucking boring - infix diagnostic

[Ben Zimmer]

There's some useful discussion in Michael Adams's 2012 book _Slang: The
People's Poetry_ in the section "Lexicofabricography and the Lexically
Meaningful Infix" (pp. 127ff). I believe "dead fucking boring" would fall
under what Michael calls "syntactic interposings" of "fucking" or its
euphemisms -- he mentions "no fucking way," "where in the effin hell," and
"so friggin what" as examples. Distinguishing "interposing" from "infixing"
(as Michael does) is helpful here, I think.

--Ben


On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank you. Although I’m not 100% convinced, LH’s explanation makes more
> sense to me than mine. But if so, it seems that either the definition of
> “infix” has to be expanded, or else infixes have a wider range of function
> than simply insertion within a word.
>
> One particularly odd issue is “dead/right fucking ahead” which violates
> the infixing rule that the syllable after the point of insertion has to
> have primary stress. (That might be strong evidence that “right ahead” and
> “dead ahead” are each indeed two words and that “fucking” is not an infix.)
>
> As to the order of adjectives, I don’t think it comes into play as these
> are (conventionally) adverb + adjective expressions. See, for example,
> “dead” as an adverb at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead#Adverb <
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dead#Adverb>.
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Formerly of Seattle, WA
>
>
> > On 23 Feb 2017, at 09:36, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > I am trying to figure out how it relates to this:
> > http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-
> grammar/about-adjectives-and-adverbs/adjectives-order
> >
> > DanG
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Interesting issues here.  I think a couple of things are going on.  I
> >> don’t think we want to say “dead boring” is a single word.  For one
> thing,
> >> it’s not a compound and it doesn’t have the phonology of a single word.
> >> Rather, it’s one of many, or at several, cases in which an intensifying
> >> adverb must immediately precede the adjective it modifies.  Often
> there’s a
> >> collocation effect.  Other examples include:
> >>
> >> Dead ahead
> >> Stark naked
> >> Plumb crazy
> >> Real dumb (vs. “really dumb”, which doesn’t have the immediate adjacency
> >> constraint)
> >> Right ahead
> >> Pitch black (originally a compound, but reanalyzed for those who don’t
> >> know what “pitch” refers to; cf. the attested “pitch white”)
> >>
> >> These are different from “ice cold”, which is still, I think, a
> compound.
> >>
> >> Not unrelated are collocations of intensifier + noun, again not counting
> >> as a single word despite the difficulty of interruption:
> >> Rank stranger
> >> Sworn enemy
> >> Bosom buddy
> >> Flaming asshole
> >>
> >> For both classes, a diagnostic is ability to interrupt the sequence by a
> >> conjoined modifier or other material.  For me at least there’s a
> difference
> >> in pairs like
> >>
> >> He’s really, if I may say, certifiable/dumb/...
> >> #He’s real, if I may say, certifiable/dumb/…
> >>
> >> He’s really and totally dangerous
> >> #He’s real and totally dangerous
> >>
> >> But what *can* interrupt the sequence (at least in most of these cases)
> is
> >> the same material that works as an infix interrupting a word:
> “fuckin(g)”,
> >> “bloody”, “damn”, etc.:
> >>
> >> He’s real fucking certifiable/dangerous
> >> You’re a rank fucking stranger
> >> Plumb fucking crazy
> >>
> >> and of course
> >> Dead fucking boring/ahead
> >>
> >>
> >> LH
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Feb 23, 2017, at 1:12 AM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Sorry, I think you’re saying that “dead boring” is two words.
> >>>
> >>> What I’m wondering is whether “fucking” can be used as a diagnostic to
> >> determine whether two elements such as these are a single word.
> >>>
> >>> Benjamin Barrett
> >>> Formerly of Seattle, WA
> >>>
> >>>> On 22 Feb 2017, at 17:54, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> It’s not clear to me, either, but it certainly feels and seems that
> >> way. Are there non-infixes that can go there? BB
> >>>>
> >>>>> On 22 Feb 2017, at 17:37, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think the occurrence of “bloody”, “fuckin(g)”, “damn”, etc. within
> a
> >> phonological/morphological word, as in “Massa[fuckin]chusetts”,
> >> “fan[damn]tastic” or “abso[bloody]lutely” are better candidates for
> infix
> >> status than “dead fucking boring”, since it’s not clear to me that
> >> “fucking” is an affix at all in the latter case.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> LH
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On Feb 22, 2017, at 6:05 PM, Barretts Mail <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM
> >
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> “Fucking” and variations (blooming, bloody) are the few options for
> >> infixing in English.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> (Comic: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8463 <
> >> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8463>)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Although it’s possible to parse “dead fucking boring” as “dead
> boring
> >> and fucking boring”, I’m inclined to parse “fucking” as an infix between
> >> the two. It, as well as “dead bloody boring”, comes up on Google.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Here are some tests that don’t come up on Google:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> dead terribly boring (dead, terribly boring meaning dead and
> terribly
> >> boring is on Google)
> >>>>>> dead frighteningly boring
> >>>>>> dead jacked boring =? dead-jacked boring
> >>>>
>
>
>

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