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Fun:Portmanteau

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Said and done
Jargon, buzzwords, slogans

The portmanteau is an extremely lazy way of producing neologisms, often used by women's magazines, religious groups, extremists, and those who lack the benefit of a proper Classical education. This means of producing new words, by ramming two (or more) old ones together seems to be particularly favoured by totalitarian states. Portmanteaux (for that is the proper plural) are often unwieldy, ugly, and incredibly cheesy. De gustibus non disputandum est.

It is also on the increase. Be warned.

Why do we actually need portmanteaux, when such Latin and Greek have given us such wonderful and easy to spell words as steatophobia ("fattism"), triskaidekaphobia ("thirteenophobia"), ochlocracy ("mobocracy"), thalassocracy, xerophthalmia, dendrophilia (treecurious), doxography and hysteron proteron?

Religion etc.[edit]

Pastafarian iconography.

Political portmanteaux[edit]

XKCD wake up sheeple.png

Other stuff[edit]

  • Affluenza - Affluence + Influenza — Having too much wealth.
  • Agitprop - Agitation + Propaganda
  • Assfly - Schafly + Ass — Name calling, but perhaps deserved.
  • Backronym - Back + Acronym — A word which is reverse engineered to produce a fake acronym, e.g. D.A.R.Y.L.
  • Bicurious - Bisexual + Curious — Someone who is interested in old aeroplanes Someone who's sleeping around to determine what their sexuality is.
  • Brangelina - Brad (Pitt) and Angelina (Jolie) — Part of a sickeningly cutesy trend of referring to a couple by a single name, as if they're one person.
  • Broscience - Bro(ther) + Science
  • Causalation - Causation + Correlation
  • Chocoholic - Chocolate + Alcoholic — A way of belittling alcoholism, by jokingly comparing it with chocolate overindulgence, cf. Workaholic.
  • Chillax - Chill + Relax — If you really want to chill, use a pickaxe.
  • Cyberpunk - Cybernetic + Punk — A genre of science fiction, cf. Steampunk.
  • Gaydar - Gay + Radar — How homosexuals detect each other, apparently.
  • Frankenfood - Frankenstein + Food — Artificial food, food additives or genetically modified ones, etc.
  • Guesstimate - Guess + Estimate — Your guess is as good as mine.
  • JAQing off - "Just Asking Questions" + Jacking Off (demotic for masturbation)
  • Mansplaining - Man + Explaining — Can we think of a better word for this?
  • Manufactroversy - Manufactured + Controversy — Not only made up, but clumsy.
  • Mockumentary - Mock + Documentary — A fake documentary, cf. Rockumentary (Rock + Documentary).
  • Motel - Motor + Hotel — A place where hypocritical politicians, evangelists etc. often congregate at nights.
  • Nutpicking - Nut + Nitpicking — Not to be confused with the agricultural activity.
  • Satisficing - Satisfying + Sacrificing Sufficing — Clumsy.
  • Wikipedia - Wiki (Wiki Wiki, meaning quick in Hawaiian) + Encyclopedia

See also[edit]