Is this, from today's Chicago Tribune, an improper usage?

But here on the banks of the Ohio River the incumbent congressman is in such extremis that he believes a visit by President Bush would hurt more than help.

In extremis means 'near death; in extreme situation'. It's a nice turn of phrase to my mind. Is the such bothering you?

I can see Shu's point...while in extremis is fairly common, does in such extremis make sense? Perhaps he's just playing with words, and you certainly can understand his point. [See, Zmj, I am becoming less and less prescriptive. ]

I am becoming less and less prescriptive

I, seriously, cannot even imagine what the grammar maven's prescription would be in this case. "One oughtn't to mix Latin and English"?

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One oughtn't to mix Latin and English

That seems unlikely. There are lots of expressions in Latin which are used in the course of English. Habeas Corpus has come up a lot in the last few weeks, for one.

But this is a bit different; this has an English word in the middle of the Latin phrase.

Goofy, you've absofuckinglutely seen what I mean.

Is this something only hoi very polloi would do?

It's at least a couple of years old, looking through the 63 ghits for "in such extremis". It might be considered a kind of tmesis, a milder, generic form of expletive infixation.

Could a prescriptivist say, "so in extremis?"

But not "in such deeeeeeep extremis."

Ahem, Shu. Perhaps a little soap in the mouth is in order? (You might know that zmj has a word for it!)

Since in is the same in both Latin and English, I suppose some could argue that they are not splitting the phrase, as only extremis is in Latin. I don't agree, as the usual tag is in extremis, but ...

Is Shu in deepest extremis?

I suppose some could argue that they are not splitting the phrase

Ah, now I see. I would suggest that splitting prepositional phrases is OK in both English and Latin. In Latin, word order is less important than in English. Prepositions are said to govern certain cases. In sometimes takes the accusative (e.g., for motion towards) and sometimes the ablative (as it does in the case of in extremis). Latin texts abound in phrases such as: de rerum natura 'concerning the nature of things' where what gets translated by the prepositional phrase 'of things' is res in the genitive plural. De natura rerum would also be OK. For English, you can have both at times and at such times, both of which are perfectly grammatical. So, again, I ask: "what's the fuss?"

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Originally posted by zmjezhd:…So, again, I ask: "what's the fuss?"

I would suggest that In such extremis is OK only in as much as that its meaning is plain. But, it's bloody awful English.

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It's at least a couple of years old, looking through the 63 ghits for "in such extremis". It might be considered a kind of tmesis, a milder, generic form of expletive infixation.

t'aint a tmesis. OED says that 'tmesis' requires a compound word ["The separation of the elements of a compound word by the interposition of another word or words."], and there's no compound word involved here.

t'aint a tmesis

Yes, shu. That's why I said "a kind of", since many of those complaining seem to see Latin in extremis as a unit, more or less. Similar to how some see an infinitive, to leave, as unsplittable. When I learned the word tmesis way back when, it referred to phenomena in highly inflected languages like Latin, Greek, or Sanskrit, where a proclitic verbal particle was detached from its verb and one of more words where interposed. In that sense, morpheme boundaries were respected, as in the Latin example given in the tmesis article, circumdare ==> circum + dare. The same things happens in the German verbal system, where some verbal particles are detachable and end up at the end of a sentence: aufstehen 'to stand up' ==> steht ihr auf 'stand up you guys'.

As for in such extremis being demoted from ungrammatical to aesthetically unpleasing, I can only chuckle. La!

While I am not being prescriptive, mind you, I do think the meaning is a bit affected with the addition of such. It seems to me that in extremis is already extreme...without needing the such.

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Is Shu in deepest extremis?

Well, all I can say is that it's a good thing I will be going home tomorrow! (I've been traveling for my job.)

I think "in such extremis" makes me cringe like "really unique" and "repeatedly redundant" make me cringe. But none of it is quite as annoying as being in Ohio during this last phase before the election. If I get one more stinkin' call from the political parties or survey-mongers, I'm going to unplug the blasted phone!

like "really unique" and "repeatedly redundant"

I really am trying to see what's so wrong about in such extremis. At first I thought people didn't want to mix English into a Latin phrase, and now I see it's a question of whether extremes can be compared to one another.

In Latin, extremus is the superlative of exter 'on the outside, outward, of another country, family, etc., foreign. strange' (its comparative form is exterior). Because, extremus is an irregular superlative form, it came to be compared, etremior and extremissimus in post-Classical period. So, now I think I see what others are objecting to. But as the meaning of in extremis is 'near death', I think that two different people's in extremises can be compared to one another. Some people are just more dramtically nearer to death than others. But, hey, that's just me.

On the English side, there is an example of irregular comparative being compared in less, lesser. Less is the irregular comparative form of little (less, least), but in the 19th century people started to use lesser as a form. Same thing with nigh, near, next: near, nearer, nearest.

[Cleaning up my misspellings.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I think shufitz is the only one who can define what he means by 'improper' usage in his first post. Like zmj, I can't see what all the fuss is about.