Archive for Portmanteaus
I was wandering around in an internet rabbit hole just now, and came across two words that pleased me. Now that Twitter is called X, I’ve seen some people use the word xitter, and explain that x is pronounced like sh in some contexts. That doesn’t particularly appeal to me. But I just saw someone […]
Just got curious about the word motorcade, and was surprised by a couple of things in its etymology: I was thinking it might be short for something like motorcar parade, to account for that c in the middle. Turns out motorcade is more or less from motor cavalcade. It had never occurred to me that […]
From 'June' and 'Nineteenth', obviously. We could call it Emancipation Day, too.
There are surely more examples of these blended portmanteau emotions, but “hangry” (hungry + angry) has become a major part of my kids’ lexicon, and “smad” (sad mad) was made memorable by a mention in Gilmore Girls. I find hangry in particular quite useful as a reminder to check for HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired) […]