Everything about Portmanteau totally explained
A
portmanteau, plural
portmanteaux, is a word or
morpheme that
fuses two or more words or word parts to give a combined or
loaded new meaning. It is a
common misunderstanding that a portmanteau is a mixture of any two words, which is actually known as a
blend.
A folk usage of
portmanteau refers to a
word formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words, such as
spork from
spoon and
fork. They are called
blends in
linguistics.
Etymology and usage
This usage of the word was coined by
Lewis Carroll in
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). In the book,
Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice words from
Jabberwocky, saying, “Well,
slithy means
lithe and slimy ... You see it's like a
portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.” Carroll often used such words to convey humorous effect in his work.
Portemanteau, from
Middle French porter (to carry) and
manteau (a coat or cover), originally referred to a
large travelling bag or
suitcase with two compartments, hence the linguistic idea of fusing two words and their meanings into one.
Portemanteau is rarely used to refer to a suitcase in
English any more, since that type of a suitcase has fallen into disuse. (Note - amongst older Australians the diminutive term "port" is sometimes used to describe a carry-item containing personal belongings.) In
French, the word has the different meaning of
coat hanger, and sometimes
coat rack, and is spelled
porte-manteau.
Portmanteau word was the original phrase used to describe such words (as listed in dictionaries published as late as the early
2000s), but this is now usually abbreviated to simply
portmanteau.
Portmanteau morpheme
A
portmanteau morpheme is a
morpheme which fuses two or more grammatical categories (see
fusional language). The classical example of such a morpheme in English is the verbal suffix
-s. This particular suffix carries (for example, ports) at least four distinct inflectional meanings and imparts each of these onto the verb's meaning:
Spanish verb suffixes are also fusional with very many portmanteaux in the Spanish inflectional system.
Portmanteau word
In
linguistics, a
portmanteau word is a word which fuses two
function words. This use overlaps a bit with the folk term
contraction, but linguists avoid using the latter. Example: In French,
à +
les becomes
aux, a single indivisible word which contains both meanings.
Blend
Outside the formal study of linguistics, the term
portmanteau or
combination is sometimes used for blends,
neologism by blending the parts of two or more words, generally the
back-clipped first word and the
fore-clipped second word, such as
motel,
smog, and
brunch.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Portmanteau'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://portmanteau.totallyexplained.com">Portmanteau Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
