as adapted from P. Cornelisse - Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding
Something interesting is happening to the word fucking. For years goodly linguists have been doing research into it, and especially into phenomenon called fucking insertion.
The question with fucking insertion is: where can we put the word fucking, and where can't we? Apparently we have unconscious rules for that in our head. In English you can even stuff 'fucking' into a word: Fan-fucking-tastic! But here's the thing: we can only do it before the syllable with stress (in this case 'tas'). Consequently we'd never hear 'Fantas-fucking-tic'. Americans can effortlessly insert 'fucking' in the right spot. 'Kanga-fucking-roo', 'Minne-fucking-sota', et cetera.
Cornelisse goes on to say she feels this isn't possible in Dutch, but I disagree. 'Amster-fucking-dam' yo.
That sounds like a really appealing country jello_biafra. Might as well change your name to increase tourism.
Edit: I meant to say tourism not tourists.
Also, Bowser and Blue made an excellent song called "Use of the F word in Canada." It's on youtube here. I recommend simply listening to the audio because the text isn't synched properly. The start says The Arrogant Worms but it's by Bowser and Blue. Both groups are hillarious though.
On June 29 2009 01:05 mikeymoo wrote: mikey-fucking-moo. Nice ring to it.
CHARLIE FUCKING MURPHY Fana fucking tacist Sonuv fucking Bob Thedead fucking haji Mani fucking festo lil fucking susie never fucking gg <- awesome one frozen fucking arbiter bi fucking su jae fucking dong rek fucking rul
I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
On June 29 2009 02:21 defenestrate wrote: Micronesia's right, it works like a charm if stuck into an anapest.
pido-fucking-ras kozlo-fucking-yob (bit of redundancy there, whatever) Lenin-fucking-grad and so forth
o_O pidoras? kozloyob? I sense Slavic roots but not the Russian language. Is my insult/slang rhetoric outdated because I haven't been to Russia in a few years?
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
If you are okay with complete failure then I suppose you can say whatever you want.
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
If you are okay with complete failure then I suppose you can say whatever you want.
And if you are okay with forum fascism then I suppose you can continue making boring dissections of people's posts where it is completely unnecessary.
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
If you are okay with complete failure then I suppose you can say whatever you want.
And if you are okay with forum fascism then I suppose you can continue making boring dissections of people's posts where it is completely unnecessary.
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
If you are okay with complete failure then I suppose you can say whatever you want.
And if you are okay with forum fascism then I suppose you can continue making boring dissections of people's posts where it is completely unnecessary.
This does not even describe what has happened lol
Although you were not quite a grammar Nazi like the "forum fascism" statement might allude to, it is a close relative of said Nazi to take one usage of a technique and explain why it is an inefficient use of a technique that wasn't really meant to be serious in the first place.
EDIT: Although I will give you credit, this was more of a "nitpicking" act than a dissection.
On June 29 2009 01:49 Arrian wrote: I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
This is so no true. Firstly, while infixation isn't a typical property OF ENGLISH, it is a very robust morphological process in many many other languages, notably arabic where many root words consist of a 3 constant string and vowels are infixed. (Edit: I just thought of something else--infixation is a common process in ludlings/word games/pig latin as well)
Stuff about morphology you probably don't care about: + Show Spoiler +
Sidenote, really all that infixation means is that you have your root word and you have your "other stuff" which aren't quite words but sort of means things, aka morphemes, like the -s for plural for instance and in English. You gotta stick that shit somewhere and you have three options "beginning, middlesomewhere, and end". In English all inflectional morphemes (things like -s, -ing, they don't make a new word but they made it plural or progressive or something) go at the end. There are also derivational morphemes--parts of words that kinda sorta mean things but can't easily be added onto words--ie "pre" or "con", you sort of have the idea that pre means before and con means against but it would take you a while to realize that. Those mostly all go at the beginning. All infixes are are some languages like dumping shit in the middle of their words so instead of "bobcats", they'd do it like "bobscat". Some languages like doing things that way--I'm sure some of our readers who speak other languages than English are like that.
Sign Languages don't necessarily have to obey this rule as you could simultaneous mark your morphological structure. They could also do it the other way, but they will often opt for a simultaneous strategy.
Secondly I have no idea why you think that bloody is "unconfirmed" in British English. It happens. Also in British you sometimes get "blooming" inserted. In American English at least you can also infix other words that are less vulgur such as flippin (fan-flipping-tastic) or god damn "a-god damn-mazing".
Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
On June 29 2009 02:21 defenestrate wrote: Micronesia's right, it works like a charm if stuck into an anapest.
pido-fucking-ras kozlo-fucking-yob (bit of redundancy there, whatever) Lenin-fucking-grad and so forth
o_O pidoras? kozloyob? I sense Slavic roots but not the Russian language. Is my insult/slang rhetoric outdated because I haven't been to Russia in a few years?
The first one might be a little off (supposed to be analogous to fag?) The second's improvised, because every language needs a goatfucker. Your Russian is certainly better than mine, FWIW.
On June 29 2009 02:21 defenestrate wrote: Micronesia's right, it works like a charm if stuck into an anapest.
pido-fucking-ras kozlo-fucking-yob (bit of redundancy there, whatever) Lenin-fucking-grad and so forth
o_O pidoras? kozloyob? I sense Slavic roots but not the Russian language. Is my insult/slang rhetoric outdated because I haven't been to Russia in a few years?
The first one might be a little off (supposed to be analogous to fag?) The second's improvised, because every language needs a goatfucker. Your Russian is certainly better than mine, FWIW.
Maybe you are thinking of pizdetz?
Goatfucker would be closer to kozloy'op (or kozli if you wanted it to be at least partially feminine in root), pretty clever though lol.
Thanks btw :p It's not hard though when you are born with it. Learning it as a second language is REALLY tough.
On June 29 2009 01:49 Arrian wrote: I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
This is so no true. Firstly, while infixation isn't a typical property OF ENGLISH, it is a very robust morphological process in many many other languages, notably arabic where many root words consist of a 3 constant string and vowels are infixed. (Edit: I just thought of something else--infixation is a common process in ludlings/word games/pig latin as well)
Stuff about morphology you probably don't care about: + Show Spoiler +
Sidenote, really all that infixation means is that you have your root word and you have your "other stuff" which aren't quite words but sort of means things, aka morphemes, like the -s for plural for instance and in English. You gotta stick that shit somewhere and you have three options "beginning, middlesomewhere, and end". In English all inflectional morphemes (things like -s, -ing, they don't make a new word but they made it plural or progressive or something) go at the end. There are also derivational morphemes--parts of words that kinda sorta mean things but can't easily be added onto words--ie "pre" or "con", you sort of have the idea that pre means before and con means against but it would take you a while to realize that. Those mostly all go at the beginning. All infixes are are some languages like dumping shit in the middle of their words so instead of "bobcats", they'd do it like "bobscat". Some languages like doing things that way--I'm sure some of our readers who speak other languages than English are like that.
Sign Languages don't necessarily have to obey this rule as you could simultaneous mark your morphological structure. They could also do it the other way, but they will often opt for a simultaneous strategy.
Secondly I have no idea why you think that bloody is "unconfirmed" in British English. It happens. Also in British you sometimes get "blooming" inserted. In American English at least you can also infix other words that are less vulgur such as flippin (fan-flipping-tastic) or god damn "a-god damn-mazing".
Oh fucking wow oO kind of tl bloody dr I wish I could compre-fucking-hend more of it
Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
pie-fucking-rdolić... no fu-fuck-cking doesn't make any sense >< edit: translated it wrong pierdo-fucking-lony is fu-fucking-cking
wa-fucking-kacje klawia-fucking-tura
I don't feel like mixing languages like that makes sense to me ;P
On June 29 2009 01:49 Arrian wrote: I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
This is so no true. Firstly, while infixation isn't a typical property OF ENGLISH, it is a very robust morphophonological process in many many other languages, notably arabic where many root words consist of a 3 constant string and vowels are infixed. (Edit: I just thought of something else--infixation is a common process in ludlings/word games/pig latin as well)
Stuff about morphology you probably don't care about: + Show Spoiler +
Sidenote, really all that infixation means is that you have your root word and you have your "other stuff" which aren't quite words but sort of means things, aka morphemes, like the -s for plural for instance and in English. You gotta stick that shit somewhere and you have three options "beginning, middlesomewhere, and end". In English all inflectional morphemes (things like -s, -ing, they don't make a new word but they made it plural or progressive or something) go at the end. There are also derivational morphemes--parts of words that kinda sorta mean things but can't easily be added onto words--ie "pre" or "con", you sort of have the idea that pre means before and con means against but it would take you a while to realize that. Those mostly all go at the beginning. All infixes are are some languages like dumping shit in the middle of their words so instead of "bobcats", they'd do it like "bobscat". Some languages like doing things that way--I'm sure some of our readers who speak other languages than English are like that.
Sign Languages don't necessarily have to obey this rule as you could simultaneous mark your morphological structure. They could also do it the other way, but they will often opt for a simultaneous strategy.
Secondly I have no idea why you think that bloody is "unconfirmed" in British English. It happens. Also in British you sometimes get "blooming" inserted. In American English at least you can also infix other words that are less vulgur such as flippin (fan-flipping-tastic) or god damn "a-god damn-mazing".
Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
I am quite aware of the facts surrounding morphology. I am a linguistics major, considering a specialty in morphology. And I'm pretty confident that you're wrong.
To begin, infixes do not necessarily even have to have a meaning. In English there is another type of infixation as with the alternation of /tag/ - /tang/ where the engma is epenthesized for morphological reasons. The engma has no meaning associated, yet it is an infix. The reason I have reservations about British and American English 'infixation' is that there has been an idea posited that infixation of expletives and regular infixation are two separate processes (and indeed they must be in their motivations), as regular infixation results in a meaning change, whereas expletive infixation is merely serves an intensive function.
Regarding the typological prevalence infixation, I was speaking relatively. Infixation is not as widely attested as other morphological processes (perhaps even circumfixation), and that is simply a fact. When parsing data, the first instinct upon seeing a base change that might suggest infixation should not be that the form is an infix because it is not as well attested.
You seem to be mistaking productivity for typological prevalence. In Arabic, infixation is extremely productive. However, most languages do not even witness infixation. That was my point.
I was just playing Grand Theft Auto 4 recently for the first time, and in the bank robber mission the crew storms the bank and one of them yells out "none of you fucking fucks move" lol
On June 29 2009 02:58 Andtwo wrote: Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
I like how you did a huge rant on morphology after completely ignoring my post It's dependant on stress, Texas is TEX-as. Try Ala-fucking-bama in stead.
On June 29 2009 01:05 mikeymoo wrote: mikey-fucking-moo. Nice ring to it.
CHARLIE FUCKING MURPHY Fana fucking tacist Sonuv fucking Bob Thedead fucking haji Mani fucking festo lil fucking susie never fucking gg <- awesome one frozen fucking arbiter bi fucking su jae fucking dong rek fucking rul
I find Ar-fucking-tosis works well :p
On June 28 2009 21:54 538 wrote: ahem, does anyone recall this thread? + Show Spoiler +
On June 27 2009 20:13 Pholon wrote: FUCK MY 1000th POST WAS SOMETHING LAME
FUCK
:-p /off
It doesnt work with mine at all.
Yer I pretty much hoped noone'd notice :x
I'm actually interested how this works (if at all) in Finnish/Hungarian since they're mostly stress-the-first-syllable languages. Does fucking insertion (pun completely intended imo) not happen at all?
On June 29 2009 01:29 micronesia wrote: You guys aren't really obeying the "fucking before accented syllable" rule...
Fanatacist how exactly do you pronounce bisu?
BEE-soo
There is really nowhere else to put it in the word, naw mean?
Although my Russian instincts tell me to pronounce it bi(flat)-SU(flat accented)
The rule specifically says the 'fucking 'has to be before the accented syllable... so if it's a two syllable word with the first syllable being the accented one then you can't use it effectively.
Yes but I don't care. You can still say it... BEE-fucking-soo. It doesn't flow as well as Fucking Bisu, but I never claimed it to do so nor was it my intent to give a definitive list of perfect uses of this technique.
I find myself saying "Fucking Bisu" a lot thanks to Fantasy PL. :p
On June 29 2009 01:49 Arrian wrote: I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
This is so no true. Firstly, while infixation isn't a typical property OF ENGLISH, it is a very robust morphophonological process in many many other languages, notably arabic where many root words consist of a 3 constant string and vowels are infixed. (Edit: I just thought of something else--infixation is a common process in ludlings/word games/pig latin as well)
Stuff about morphology you probably don't care about: + Show Spoiler +
Sidenote, really all that infixation means is that you have your root word and you have your "other stuff" which aren't quite words but sort of means things, aka morphemes, like the -s for plural for instance and in English. You gotta stick that shit somewhere and you have three options "beginning, middlesomewhere, and end". In English all inflectional morphemes (things like -s, -ing, they don't make a new word but they made it plural or progressive or something) go at the end. There are also derivational morphemes--parts of words that kinda sorta mean things but can't easily be added onto words--ie "pre" or "con", you sort of have the idea that pre means before and con means against but it would take you a while to realize that. Those mostly all go at the beginning. All infixes are are some languages like dumping shit in the middle of their words so instead of "bobcats", they'd do it like "bobscat". Some languages like doing things that way--I'm sure some of our readers who speak other languages than English are like that.
Sign Languages don't necessarily have to obey this rule as you could simultaneous mark your morphological structure. They could also do it the other way, but they will often opt for a simultaneous strategy.
Secondly I have no idea why you think that bloody is "unconfirmed" in British English. It happens. Also in British you sometimes get "blooming" inserted. In American English at least you can also infix other words that are less vulgur such as flippin (fan-flipping-tastic) or god damn "a-god damn-mazing".
Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
I am quite aware of the facts surrounding morphology. I am a linguistics major, considering a specialty in morphology. And I'm pretty confident that you're wrong.
To begin, infixes do not necessarily even have to have a meaning. In English there is another type of infixation as with the alternation of /tag/ - /tang/ where the engma is epenthesized for morphological reasons. The engma has no meaning associated, yet it is an infix. The reason I have reservations about British and American English 'infixation' is that there has been an idea posited that infixation of expletives and regular infixation are two separate processes (and indeed they must be in their motivations), as regular infixation results in a meaning change, whereas expletive infixation is merely serves an intensive function.
Regarding the typological prevalence infixation, I was speaking relatively. Infixation is not as widely attested as other morphological processes (perhaps even circumfixation), and that is simply a fact. When parsing data, the first instinct upon seeing a base change that might suggest infixation should not be that the form is an infix because it is not as well attested.
You seem to be mistaking productivity for typological prevalence. In Arabic, infixation is extremely productive. However, most languages do not even witness infixation. That was my point.
I'm not really sure what this /tag/ - /tang/ ([tag]-[taη], [tag]-[taηg]???) alternation is, but epenthesis is not a morphological process--it's a phonological one, thus the not carrying any meaning. Epenthesis is much more things like ham(p)ster or Chom(p)sky which are also not infixation (which may lean towards the phonetic even and not phonological, JJ Ohala and Blevins deal with this if you're interesting). Also other languages have morphological intensifier markers so I don't see why it couldn't be similar even if it is a whole word. Especially since it's very restrictive in form--the infix itself it typically follows the metrical foot structure unlike the "middle name" phenomenon of things like "jesus tap dancing christ"/"jesus tittyfucking christ", which is why we get things like god damn, bleeding, bloody, fucking but not hell, shit, damn (Ari-god damn-zona > *Ari-damn-zona). I can't really give you an example of a non-word morpheme that qualifies but it does work with "eff-ing" (Ari-effing-zona). If you really want to make the hairsplit distinction that infixation must be a bound morpheme, you can though--I just don't see the use in doing so.
Also infixation might be somewhat "uncommon", but it's not really an ultra rare process like forming a coda around a fricative/plosive. Here's a list for instance, and while it's quite uncommon in indo-european languages, cross linguistically, I'm not sure it's that rare on some level, just not very intuitive. http://books.google.com/books?id=C3VS4SrghvkC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=languages with infixation&source=bl&ots=GGHOa1Rnim&sig=7ZuRrUzBsZ8giBECclIhQmEL1TY&hl=en&ei=7vhHStLsPIvDtwek1u2MCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3 Page 231 gives a list of over 111 languages displaying the process. Furthermore, typology is not an especially useful construct. Because infixation seldom occurs in Indo-European languages but runs rampant in Austronesian languages, what use do we find from typology. Also, more arguments against typology are found in Evans & Levinson (2009) in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. As a linguistics major, you might find it interesting.
TLDR: it's close enough to real infixation to count and infixation isn't THAT uncommon and typology is kinda like ehh whatever.
Also, expletive infixation is really cool. It's one of the more accessible things in linguistics and something that caught my interest early on. Any linguistic process that leads to a picture of jesus sexing himself is ok in my book.
On June 29 2009 01:49 Arrian wrote: I thought the property was called 'infixation,' and yes, it's a phenomenon in English that may appear only otherwise in the use of 'bloody' in British English, but that's not confirmed. Infixation isn't a typical property typologically speaking, so to call it 'infixation' is a little more difficult for the linguistic community to accept.
This is so no true. Firstly, while infixation isn't a typical property OF ENGLISH, it is a very robust morphophonological process in many many other languages, notably arabic where many root words consist of a 3 constant string and vowels are infixed. (Edit: I just thought of something else--infixation is a common process in ludlings/word games/pig latin as well)
Stuff about morphology you probably don't care about: + Show Spoiler +
Sidenote, really all that infixation means is that you have your root word and you have your "other stuff" which aren't quite words but sort of means things, aka morphemes, like the -s for plural for instance and in English. You gotta stick that shit somewhere and you have three options "beginning, middlesomewhere, and end". In English all inflectional morphemes (things like -s, -ing, they don't make a new word but they made it plural or progressive or something) go at the end. There are also derivational morphemes--parts of words that kinda sorta mean things but can't easily be added onto words--ie "pre" or "con", you sort of have the idea that pre means before and con means against but it would take you a while to realize that. Those mostly all go at the beginning. All infixes are are some languages like dumping shit in the middle of their words so instead of "bobcats", they'd do it like "bobscat". Some languages like doing things that way--I'm sure some of our readers who speak other languages than English are like that.
Sign Languages don't necessarily have to obey this rule as you could simultaneous mark your morphological structure. They could also do it the other way, but they will often opt for a simultaneous strategy.
Secondly I have no idea why you think that bloody is "unconfirmed" in British English. It happens. Also in British you sometimes get "blooming" inserted. In American English at least you can also infix other words that are less vulgur such as flippin (fan-flipping-tastic) or god damn "a-god damn-mazing".
Also when you are thinking of doing this in your own language that's not English, try using native curse words and at least 3 syllable words. It doesn't work in English either if you use some words *Tex-fucking-as.
I am quite aware of the facts surrounding morphology. I am a linguistics major, considering a specialty in morphology. And I'm pretty confident that you're wrong.
To begin, infixes do not necessarily even have to have a meaning. In English there is another type of infixation as with the alternation of /tag/ - /tang/ where the engma is epenthesized for morphological reasons. The engma has no meaning associated, yet it is an infix. The reason I have reservations about British and American English 'infixation' is that there has been an idea posited that infixation of expletives and regular infixation are two separate processes (and indeed they must be in their motivations), as regular infixation results in a meaning change, whereas expletive infixation is merely serves an intensive function.
Regarding the typological prevalence infixation, I was speaking relatively. Infixation is not as widely attested as other morphological processes (perhaps even circumfixation), and that is simply a fact. When parsing data, the first instinct upon seeing a base change that might suggest infixation should not be that the form is an infix because it is not as well attested.
You seem to be mistaking productivity for typological prevalence. In Arabic, infixation is extremely productive. However, most languages do not even witness infixation. That was my point.
I'm not really sure what this /tag/ - /tang/ ([tag]-[taη], [tag]-[taηg]???) alternation is, but epenthesis is not a morphological process--it's a phonological one, thus the not carrying any meaning. Epenthesis is much more things like ham(p)ster or Chom(p)sky which are also not infixation (which may lean towards the phonetic even and not phonological, JJ Ohala and Blevins deal with this if you're interesting). Also other languages have morphological intensifier markers so I don't see why it couldn't be similar even if it is a whole word. Especially since it's very restrictive in form--the infix itself it typically follows the metrical foot structure unlike the "middle name" phenomenon of things like "jesus tap dancing christ"/"jesus tittyfucking christ", which is why we get things like god damn, bleeding, bloody, fucking but not hell, shit, damn (Ari-god damn-zona > *Ari-damn-zona). I can't really give you an example of a non-word morpheme that qualifies but it does work with "eff-ing" (Ari-effing-zona). If you really want to make the hairsplit distinction that infixation must be a bound morpheme, you can though--I just don't see the use in doing so.
Also infixation might be somewhat "uncommon", but it's not really an ultra rare process like forming a coda around a fricative/plosive. Here's a list for instance, and while it's quite uncommon in indo-european languages, cross linguistically, I'm not sure it's that rare on some level, just not very intuitive. http://books.google.com/books?id=C3VS4SrghvkC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=languages with infixation&source=bl&ots=GGHOa1Rnim&sig=7ZuRrUzBsZ8giBECclIhQmEL1TY&hl=en&ei=7vhHStLsPIvDtwek1u2MCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3 Page 231 gives a list of over 111 languages displaying the process. Furthermore, typology is not an especially useful construct. Because infixation seldom occurs in Indo-European languages but runs rampant in Austronesian languages, what use do we find from typology. Also, more arguments against typology are found in Evans & Levinson (2009) in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. As a linguistics major, you might find it interesting.
TLDR: it's close enough to real infixation to count and infixation isn't THAT uncommon and typology is kinda like ehh whatever.
Also, expletive infixation is really cool. It's one of the more accessible things in linguistics and something that caught my interest early on. Any linguistic process that leads to a picture of jesus sexing himself is ok in my book.
I mispoke. However, the morphophonological alternation is quite apparent. It occurs in latinate bases such as [taeg] and [frag] (meaning 'touch' and 'break' respectively) becoming in some context of some affixes (forget which ones, it's been two years) become [tae{engma}g] and [fra{engma}g] or something like that. I could find it if you wanted.
My point simply was that infixation is not particularly common. It's not as rare, as you agree, as finding something like a supine verbal, but it's not what could be characterized as common, and even less common would be a language which uses it as extensively as Arabic.
EPT
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