Syllable Planning
Syllable Planning
Cueball: Man, that is ridicu -fucking—... ...Hang on, I inserted "fucking" too late and now there's just one awkward syllable left. Can I back up? [Cueball is standing next to Megan.]

Cueball wants to say ri-fucking-diculous , but he inserts the fucking too late in the word. Now, he has to say ridicu-fucking-lous , which sounds ridiculous.
This is an example of tmesis , the breaking up of a word to include another within it, and more specifically of expletive infixation . Normally, for rhythmic reasons the included word is inserted before the stressed syllable ( ri dic ulous becoming ri-fucking- dic ulous ) which is what Cueball messed up. However, in some cases it is also possible to break the word after a prefix instead, so for some words there are two ways to do it e.g. unbe-fucking- lie vable (before the stressed syllable) or un-fucking-be lie vable ; this is because unbelievable is a combination of un and believable to negate believable which is an actual English word [ citation needed ] and therefore it still sounds good.
The title text introduces a further example, with speaker inserting the fucking too late into the word absolutely —which would have resulted in absolute-fucking-ly —but leaving the word unfinished when they realize their mistake. The more usual tmesis here would be abso-fucking-lutely .
Cueball: Man, that is ridicu -fucking—... ...Hang on, I inserted "fucking" too late and now there's just one awkward syllable left. Can I back up? [Cueball is standing next to Megan.]
