When I took linguistics, we studied "expletive infixation" in two of our courses -- and in American English, the main example of that is the word "fuck", as in

When I took linguistics, we studied "expletive infixation" in two of our courses -- and in American English, the main example of that is the word "fuck", as in "abso-fucking-lutely". My first professor had no problems leading the class with that example, whilst my second professor became very timid during that lesson and had us use "bloody" from British English instead. It's amusing to me that even linguistic professors can become shy at the sound of an obscene word -- the taboo-ness is that ingrained into us. More on expletive infixation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation