Portmanteau

For other uses of "Portmanteau", see "Portmanteau" (disambiguation).

A portmanteau (/pɔːrtˈmæntoʊ/ , /ˌpɔːrtmænˈtoʊ/; plural portmanteaux or portmanteaus) or portmanteau word is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word. The word comes from the English portmanteau luggage (a piece of luggage with two compartments), itself derived from the French porter (to carry) and manteau (coat), which is a false friend of the French compound word porte-manteau meaning coat rack.

A portmanteau word fuses both the sounds and the meanings of its components, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or the term "wurly" to describe hair that is both wavy and curly. In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph which represents two or more morphemes.

Meaning

"Portmanteau word" is used to describe a linguistic blend, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their meanings." This definition overlaps with the grammatical term contraction, but a distinction can be made between a portmanteau and a contraction by noting that contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as do and not, whereas a portmanteau word is typically formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a singular concept which the portmanteau word is meant to describe, such as Spanish and English, into Spanglish.

Portmanteaux should also be distinguished from compounds, which do not involve the truncation of parts of the stems of the words making them up. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a portmanteau, of star and fish (a hypothetical portmanteau of these words might be stish).

Origin

The word "portmanteau" was first used in this context by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871), in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words in Jabberwocky, where "slithy" means "lithe and slimy" and "mimsy" is "flimsy and miserable". Humpty Dumpty explains the practice of combining words in various ways by telling Alice,

'You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

In his introduction to The Hunting of the Snark, Carroll uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:

Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious". Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first ... if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious".

In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. The etymology of the word is the French portemanteau, from porter, to carry, and manteau, cloak (from Old French mantel, from Latin mantellum). In modern French, a porte-manteau is a clothes valet, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like.

note : French verb "porter" can have many different meanings. Usually it means "carry (something)" or "wear (clothes)"... but in this case French people would now understand it in the meaning of "supporter" (to support / to sustain) so far the "manteau" is hang up on it.

Examples

Standard English

The original "Gerrymander" pictured in an 1812 cartoon. The word is a portmanteau of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry's name, with "salamander"

Many neologisms are examples of blends, but many blends have become part of the lexicon. In Punch in 1896, the word brunch (breakfast + lunch) was introduced as a "portmanteau word". In 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name. Similarly Eurasia is a portmanteau of Europe and Asia.

"Wikipedia" is an example of a portmanteau; it combines the word "wiki" with the word "encyclopedia".

Portmanteau words may be produced by joining together proper nouns with common nouns, such as "gerrymandering", which refers to the scheme of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry for politically contrived redistricting; one of the districts created resembled a salamander in outline. The term gerrymander has itself contributed to portmanteau terms Bjelkemander and Playmander. Bardolatry, a portmanteau of "the bard" and "idolatry," means excessive worship of William Shakespeare and his works.

Some city names are portmanteaux of the regions they straddle: Texarkana spreads across the Texas-Arkansas border near Louisiana, while Calexico and Mexicali are respectively the American and Mexican sides of a single conurbation.

Oxbridge is a common portmanteau for the UK's two oldest and most prestigious universities, those of Oxford and Cambridge.

A scientific example is a liger, which is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger (a tiglon or tigon is a similar cross in which the male is a tiger). The business world is filled with newly invented portmanteau words such as "permalance" (permanent freelance), "advertainment" (advertising as entertainment), "advertorial" (a blurred distinction between advertising and editorial), and "infomercial" (informational commercial).

Many company or brand names are portmanteaus, including Microsoft, a portmanteau of microcomputer and software; the cheese "Cambozola" combines a similar rind to "Camembert" with the same mold used to make "Gorgonzola"; passenger rail company "Amtrak", a portmanteau of "America" and "track"; "Velcro", a portmanteau of the French "Velours" (velvet) and "Crochet" (hook); "Verizon", a portmanteau of "veritas" (truth or true) and "horizon."

Non-standard English

A spork

Many portmanteau words receive some use but do not appear in all dictionaries. For example, a spork is an eating utensil that is a combination of a spoon and fork. A skort is an item of clothing that is part skirt, part shorts.

"Jeoportmanteau!" is a recurring category on the American television quiz show Jeopardy!. The category's name is itself a portmanteau of the words "Jeopardy" and "portmanteau". Responses in the category are portmanteaux constructed by fitting two words together. For example, the clue "Brett Favre or John Elway plus a knapsack" yielded the response "What is a 'quarterbackpack'?"

Blaxploitation is a film genre/style, whose name derives from a portmanteau of "black" and "exploitation", reflecting its main themes – the presentation of social problems, alongside the stereotypical depiction of Black people in film.

Turducken is a dish made by inserting a chicken into a duck, and the duck into a turkey. In this way, the food reflects the portmanteau nature of the name. The word turducken was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2010.

Refudiate was first used by Sarah Palin when she misspoke, confusing the words refute and repudiate. Though initially a gaffe, the word was recognized as the New Oxford American Dictionary's "Word of the Year" in 2010. Stagflation though, was intentionally invented as a combination of a stagnant economy with inflation.

Name-meshing

Two proper names can also be used in creating a portmanteau word in reference to the partnership between people, especially in cases where both persons are well-known, or sometimes to produce epithets such as "Billary" (referring to former United States president Bill Clinton and his wife, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton). In this example of recent American political history, the purpose for blending is not so much to combine the meanings of the source words but "to suggest a resemblance of one named person to the other;" the effect is often derogatory, as linguist Benjamin Zimmer notes. In contrast, the public and even the media use portmanteaux to refer to their favorite pairings as a way to "...giv[e] people an essence of who they are within the same name." This is particularly seen in cases of fictional and real-life "supercouples." In addition many entertainment sources use portmanteaus as a way to "Ship"(Place them in a romantic/platonic relationship of) two or more people. An early known example, Bennifer, referred to film stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Other examples include Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). "Desilu Productions" was a Los Angeles, California-based company jointly owned by couple and actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. In double-barreled names, the hyphen is almost pushing one name away from the other. Meshing says "I am you and you are me," notes one expert.

Other languages

Bulgarian

In Bulgarian language the most common use of portmanteau is as a part of an advertisement campaign. One such example is the word gintuition (джинтуиция pronounced dzhintuitsia) which is made up from the words gin and intuition. This one in particular is used, not surprisingly, as a part of a gin commercial. Another example is the word charomat, which consists of the words чар (the Bulgarian word for charm) and аромат (meaning aroma). Made popular by an ad about a coffee brand.

Chinese

Several Chinese province names are portmanteau words. Anhui is a contraction of Anqing and Huizhou, Fujian is a contraction of Fuzhou and Jianzhou (ancient name of Jian'ou), Gansu is a contraction of Ganzhou and Suzhou, and Jiangsu is a contraction of Jiangning (ancient name of Nanjing) and Suzhou.

In 1927 the city of Wuhan, capital of the Hubei Province, was created by merging the three cities of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang into one city.

French

Despite its French etymology (modern spelling: porte-manteau), portmanteau is not used in French in this context. It is indeed a false friend. It refers to a coat stand or coat hook (literally a "coat support"), but in the past it could also mean "suitcase". It was in this context that it first came to its English use, and the metaphorical use for a linguistic phenomenon (putting one word inside another, as into a case) is an English coinage. The French linguistic term mot-valise, literally a "suitcase-word", is a relatively recent back-translation from English, attested only since 1970.

Although French is less flexible than English, it produced a number of portmanteau words such as franglais (frenglish) or courriel (courrier électronique = email) and has used the technique in literature (Boris Vian) or to create brands: Transilien (Transports franciliens = Île-de-France transportation system).

Galician

Galician has many portmanteaus, some existing also in Portuguese but many others not (or only in the North of Portugal, close to Galicia), which can be explained by its popular origin: carambelo (frozen candy), from caramelo (candy) and carámbano (icicle); martabela (a kind of dead bolt), from martelo (hammer) and tarabela (a kind of drill bit); rabuñar (to scratch with a fingernail, for instance a cat or a person), from rabuxa (a small tail, and also a common ill in tails) and rañar (to scratch); millenta ("many thousands", also common in Portuguese milhenta), from milleiro (one thousand) and cento (one hundred); runxir (to crackle, applied to some things only), from ruxir (to howl) and renxer (to grind the teeth), or vagamundo (tramp), from vagabundo (wanderer) and mundo (world), currently "vagamundo" and "vagabundo" mean the same, and the former is considered a vulgarism.

German

Kofferwort, a German synonym for portmanteau, is a recent literal translation of French mot-valise, attested since 1983. However the phenomenon is well known in German poetry. Heinrich Heine is believed to have coined over 60 portmanteaux while Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven is known for her creative use of portmanteaux such as "Kissambushed" and "Phalluspistol," themselves miniature poems. A modern example of German portmanteau is ‘Teuro’, combining ‘teuer’ (expensive) and ‘Euro’.

Gishwheshean

"Abnosome", a gishwheshean portmanteau, has been recently adopted as the official portmanteau of the GISHWHES community, the largest international community of abnormally awesome individuals ever documented. It has been used to describe prominent individuals (i.e. Misha Collins), noteworthy events (i.e. GHISWHES 2013 debut), and even noteworthy vegetables (i.e. Kale).

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew abounds with European mechanisms such as blending: Along with קומפקט דיסק (kompaktdisk, compact disc), Hebrew has the blend תקליטור (taklitor), which consists of the Jewish-descent תקליט (taklít, record) and אור (or, light). Modern Hebrew is full of portmanteau blends, such as:

• ערפיח (arpiakh, smog), from ערפל (arafel, fog) and פיח (piakh, soot)
• מדרחוב (midrakhov, (pedestrian) promenade), from מדרכה (midrakha, footpath) and רחוב (rekhov, street)
• מחזמר (makhazemer, musical), from מחזה (makhazeh, play [noun]) and זמר (zémer, song)
• בוהוריים (bohorayim, brunch), from בוקר (boker, morning) (i.e., breakfast [cf. ארוחת בוקר, arukhat boker, breakfast]), and צהריים (tsohorayim, noon), (i.e., lunch [cf. ארוחת צהריים, arukhat tsohorayim, lunch]).
• מגדלור (migdalor, lighthouse), from מגדל (migdal, tower) and אור (or, light)
• קניון (kanyon, shopping mall), from קניות (keniyot, shopping) and חניון (khenyon, parking)
• רמזור (ramzor, traffic light), from רמז (remez, signal) and אור (or, light)

Hindi

A portmanteau common in both Hindi and English is Hinglish, which refers to the vernacular of the people in (the Hindi-speaking regions of) India, where they mix Hindi and English in the spoken language. Another modern day example is the BrahMos missile, whose name is a portmanteau of two rivers, Brahmaputra and Moskva.

Compounds displaying Sanskritic sandhi are extremely commonplace in Hindi, but as compounds showing sandhi still consist of multiple morphemes, these are not portmanteaux.

Punjabi

The word Punjab is a combination of punj meaning "five" and ab meaning "water", derived from the geography of the region containing five rivers. Another portmanteau is kirpan from the words kirpa meaning "mercy" and aan meaning "dignity".

Icelandic

There is a tradition of linguistic purism in Icelandic, and neologisms are frequently created from pre-existing words. Tölva ("computer") is a portmanteau of tala ("digit; number") and völva ("oracle or seeress").

Indonesian

In Indonesian language, portmanteau are often used as both formal and informal acronyms and referrals. Many organizations and governmental bodies often using these styles, for easier writing and journalism. Often, popular journalism created their own portmanteau referring into historical moments. Examples including

Formal and journalism uses:

• Golput, voters who abstain from voting, from Golongan Putih, "blank party" or "white party".
• Jagorawi, a motorway linking the cities of Jakarta, Bogor and Ciawi.
• Jabodetabek, referring to neighboring cities of Jakarta, consisting of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi. Cianjur sometimes included (Jabodetabekjur).
• The Suramadu Bridge connects the cities of Surabaya and Madura
• "[[Malari_incident[Malari]]", refers to "Malapetaka 15 Januari" - a social riot that happened in Jan 15, 1974.
• Military units, e.g. Kopassus army special forces unit, from Komando Pasukan Khusus, "special forces command". Another example is the Kopaska navy frogman unit, from Komando Pasukan Katak, "Frogman Command".
• Governmental bodies, e.g. "Kemdikbud", refers to "Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan" (Education and Culture Ministry), where the ministry leader is called "Mendikbud", "Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan" (Minister of Education and Culture).

Informal uses, for example

• Asbun = Asal bunyi (carelessly speaking)
• Mafia = matematika + fisika + kimia (math, physics, and chemistry, three school subjects that are often related with arithmetic)
• Caper = cari perhatian (attention seeker)
• Warnet = warung internet (internet cafe)
• Alay = anak layangan, often referred into people with unfavorable fashion and behavior
• Copas = Copy paste, often referred as copying other people's work/writing without formal permit
• Ropang = roti panggang (toasted bread)
• Popular nasi goreng are also often shortened as nasgor.

The word Indonesia itself is a portmanteau of the Indian ocean and nesos, a word in Sankrit means "isles".

Japanese

A very common type of portmanteau in Japanese forms one word from the beginnings of two others (that is, from two back-clippings). The portion of each input word retained is usually two morae, which is tantamount to one kanji in most words written in kanji.

The inputs to the process can be native words, Sino-Japanese words, gairaigo (later borrowings), or combinations thereof. A Sino-Japanese example is the name 東大 (Tōdai) for the University of Tokyo, in full 東京大学 (Tōkyō daigaku). With borrowings, typical results are words such as パソコン (pasokon), meaning personal computer (PC), which despite being formed of English elements does not exist in English; it is a uniquely Japanese contraction of the English personal computer (パーソナル・コンピュータ, pāsonaru konpyūta). Another example, Pokémon (ポケモン), is a contracted form of the English words pocket (ポケット, poketto) and monsters (モンスター, monsutā). A famous example of a blend with mixed sources is karaoke (カラオケ, karaoke), blending the Japanese word for empty (空, kara) and the English word orchestra (オーケストラ, ōkesutora).

A blend not on this pattern is Gojira (ゴジラ), the original Japanese name of Godzilla, being a combination of the words gorira (ゴリラ, "gorilla"), and kujira (鯨（クジラ）, "whale"). The monster was given this name, representing its makeup as a gorilla crossed with a whale, in the early planning stages of the first film. Though the character's final appearance was much different, the name remained.

Spanish

Although not very common in Spanish (except for some compulsory contractions such as 'a el'='al'), portmanteaus are finding their way into the language mainly through marketing and media efforts, such as in Mexican Spanish 'cafebrería' from 'cafetería' and 'librería', or Teletón from 'televisión' and 'maratón'. However, it is very frequent in commercial brands of any type (for instance, "chocolleta", from "chocolate" + "galleta", cookie), and above all family owned business (of small size, for instance: Rocar, from "Roberto" + "Carlos"). Such usages are obviously prompted by the registering of a distinguishable trademark, but with time is common that a specific trademark became the name of the all simlar products, like in Cola Cao, name which is very common to use to refer any similar product.

Tibetan

Neologisms are also frequently created from pre-existing words in the Tibetan languages. For example, kubkyab (the common word for "chair") combines the words kub ("butt"), kyag ("a stand"), and gyab nye ("cushion," often for the back). Gyabnye is itself a blend of gyabten ("back support") and nyeba, the verb for "lean against, recline, rest on." Thus the word for chair is "a standing support for one's butt and back to rest on." Tibetan also employs portmanteaus frequently in names of important figures and spiritual practices, such as His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, with Penor being pema norbu ("lotus jewel"), and the Buddhist practice of Dzogchen, or dzogpa chenpo, the "Great Perfection." Tibetan is rich with portmanteaus.

Portmanteau word/morph (linguistics)

In linguistics the term blend is used to refer to general combination of words, and the term portmanteau is reserved for the narrow sense of combining two or more morphemes in one morph. E.g. in the Latin word animalis the ending -is is a portmanteau morph because it is used for two morphemes: the singularity and the genitive case. In English two separate morphs are used (of an animal).

The term may also be extended to include contractions. Examples of such combinations include:

Language	Combination	Portmanteau
Portuguese	de o	do
	a aquele	àquele
	de ela	dela
	em um	num
French	à le	au
	à les	aux
	de le	du
	de les	des
	en les	ès
German	in das	ins
	in dem	im
	zu dem	zum
	zu der	zur
Irish	de an	den
	do an	don
Spanish	a el	al
	de el	del
Italian	a il	al
	a la	alla
	a lo	allo
	a l'	all'
	a i	ai
	a gli	agli
	a le	alle
	di il	del
	di la	della
	di lo	dello
	di l'	dell'
	di i	dei
	di gli	degli
	di le	delle
	da il	dal
	da la	dalla
	da lo	dallo
	da l'	dall'
	da i	dai
	da gli	dagli
	da le	dalle
Cornish	a an	a'n
Welsh	i ein	i'n
	o ein	o'n
West Frisian	bist do	bisto
	yn de	yn 'e

This usage has been referred to as "portmanteau morph."

While in Portuguese, French, and Spanish the use of the short forms is obligatory, German and Cornish speakers theoretically may freely choose the form they use. In German, portmanteaus clearly dominate in spoken language, whilst in written language both forms are in use.

See also

• Acronym
• Blend
• Border towns in the United States with portmanteau names
• Body Sweats: The Uncensored Writings of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a collection the poetry of Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven featuring frequent and creative use of portmanteaux
• Colloquialism
• Compound words
• Double entendre
• Finnegans Wake, James Joyce's novel with an unusually high proportion of portmanteau neologisms
• List of portmanteaus
• Neologism
• Pseudo-anglicism
• Pun
• Sniglet
• Syllabic abbreviation

External links

• Lexiconcept.com—an online portmanteau generator
• Portmanteaur.com—a tool for making portmanteaus