the.com/affixes
the linguistic lego bricks that turn one word into a hundred without asking permission.
means bits glued onto a root word before, after, or inside it to change its meaning or job, like un-, -ing, or -ness.
from from latin affixus, past participle of affigere, to fasten to — grammarians in the 1600s needed a word for the stuff fastened onto stems, so they stole a carpentry term.
three main typesprefixes, suffixes, and rarer infixes inside words
infixes in englishabso-bloody-lutely counts as legit linguistics
tagalog championinfixes are a core grammar tool, not slang, there
productivity varies-ness attaches almost anywhere, -th barely survives