Word O’ Day

Time to hop on the train to Wordtown, making stops in Grammarsville and Linguaburry.

Today’s WOD is, as usual, incredible. Those of you lucky enough to know and interact with me on a regular basis should probably have heard this several trillion times by now, but the fact that its repetition has not diminished its luster in the least only emphasizes its considerable fortitude. Yikes, so here it is: Portmanteau.

Portmanteau, a Spanish word (I’m just kidding, it’s really quite French), is a noun meaning one of two things: 1) a word formed by joining two other words and combining their meanings. This is my preferred definition, and to help, I have provided some examples here. Brunch, smog, motel, and my personal favorite, disastrophe (while it is admittedly not a “real” word, it should be), are all portmanteau words (except for disastrophe, which, as I noted previously, is not a word). 2) A large travel case that hinges open into two compartments (boring). If you don’t know already, it’s pronounced pohrt-man-toh.

Deep in the Hundred Acre Usage:  Henrietta, regretting her malapropos vulgarity with Ronald, decided that the best way to distract him was to challenge him to think of a proper word that could also be a portmanteau constructed of two obscenities, to which Ronald responded, after a time, ”Shuck.”

Happy New Year! Also it seems relevant to wish everyone a belated Chrismukkah.

Yours,

-Eric