In Bold: Portmanteau

“Blogging” is a good place to start. The word, “blog” is in itself a portmanteau –  made from two words that seamlessly become a new word and embed themselves into our language use. On mentioning the word, few people nowadays would raise an eyebrow and question what was being talked about.

The word evolved from “weblog” which first appeared in 1997. By 1999, Peter Merholz brought the short form “blog” into our consciousness. Twenty-five years later it is well and truly part of our vernacular.

Myriad other terms are so far embedded in our language use that we rarely question how they came to be. Of course, Lewis Carroll was a master in this art and gave us “frumious” and “mimsy” in the 1800s. These two words we can endlessly “chortle” over still.

Much more up to date are “brunch”, “motel”, “affluenza”, “alphanumeric”, “Brexit”, “biopic”, “email”... I could go on. We use these portmanteau words because they serve a need. They fill in gaps to aid description. They are a shortcut. They are part of our shared knowledge.

So, why call them portmanteau? This word comes from French and is a combination of “porter” – carry, and “manteau” – cloak/mantle. Where would we be without a “bromance”, “frenemies”, “sporks”, “smog”,”romcoms”, or indeed the occasional male who feels the urge to “mansplain”. Anyone feeling “hangry”?

*‘In Bold’ is a blog series that fuels our nerdy needs. It excites our love for language. We aim to share a linguistic feature or word now and then, which we think you will also love.