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A poster at Facebook Headquarter
Image from TC and Facebook |
Some time ago, my student Raymond asked me the ways to attract his customers using English, and immediately I replied, "
Word Play".
There are many types of word play but the one I personally like because of popularity and simplicity in today's English is
portmanteau.
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Humpty Dumpty and Alice
Image from Wikia |
According to Wikipedia,
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word.
(FYI, A morpheme is the smallest semantic unit in a language).
One classic example is of course, brunch, which is
breakfast + lunch = brunch
then the urban (non-standard English) version of lunch and dinner came along as
dinch,
dinner + lunch = dinch
Wikipedia writes that the word 'portmanteau' was first described by the
prominent Lewis Carroll, the author of
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), in its
sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1872) when Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice the formation of strange words in the nonsense verse poem
Jabberwocky.
'You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.'
For example,
slimy + lithe = slithy,
miserable + flimsy = mimsy
And here's the poem
Jabberwocky,
"Jabberwocky"
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. |
(Possible interpretations of the poem can be found
on Wikipedia.)
That said, portmanteau is at its 140 anniversary this year!!! How remarkable!!
As time past, creative beings has expanded this joyful technique of wordplay to infinity and beyond!
First, there is fabulicious,
fabulicious = fabulious + delicious
then on YouTube,
Kai Wong of
Digitalrev threw out the word Bokehlicious in several Digitalrev TV videos and successfully turned this word into an
indispensable adjective in the field of photography.
bokehlicious = bokeh + delicious
Here's a video playlist of Kai Wong himself promoting the word,
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Facebook staff droidfood because Android is winning
the race in popularity.
Image from TC and Facebook |
Facebook began their app development based on the iPhones, but the reality is that Android phones have long overtaken the iPhones and so Facebook is putting up posters to start switching to Android and hence test their own Facebook products.
droidfooding = Android + dogfooding
Taiwanese NBA player Jeremy Lin stunned the world with his skills and stories about him flooded the internet, which led to the creation of the word, Linsanity, which literally means that Jeremy Lin is insanely good basketball player!
Linsanity = Lin + insanity
I remember that somebody has trademarked this word but I can't recall who.
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| Image from deathandtaxesmag |
On TV, portmanteau can be easily found as the name of a program. Take
dramedy Californication as an example,
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| Image from Showtime |
dramedy = drama + comedy
Californication = California + Fornication
we can easily see that the storyline must be related to sexual relationships of a married man.
In House M.D., season 3 episode 2, Cane & Able, House was looking at the huge theatre screen for an oddity in a patient's heart, and he found it,
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| Image from FOX |
House: There.
Foreman: Where?
House: Right there. Left side, no movement. [Cameron freezes the shot.] Well, don’t freeze it! Something’s not moving, how do you see something not move if nothing’s moving? [She restarts it.] I need the laser pointer.
Cameron: We don’t have a laser pointer.
House: Well, why not? Who’s going to take us seriously if we don’t have a laser pointer? Right here! [He jumps to point at the spot on the screen; as he lands he grimaces and clutches at his leg.] A few thousand myocytes not beating with the rest.
Chase: So you found an arrhythmia.
House: That’s not an arrhythmia, that’s a no-rhythmia. Myocytes contract, these aren’t moving at all. Go get me those myocytes; I want to talk to them in my office.
And so the word
no-rhythmia was born!
no-rhythmia = no + arrhythmia
A more practical example is
spork or foon
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A spork
Image from Wikipedia |
spork = spoon + fork
foon = fork + spoon
And the list goes on and on as long as creativity allows!
Oh, and let's not forget the one I created,
typhoo-liday / typhooliday!
English is just so much fun to play with!!! Let's see if you can make up some good ones!
Vocabulary:
portmanteau -- (n) [C] or portmanteau word is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings
morpheme -- (n)[C] In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantic unit in a language.
semantic -- (adj) (of words and language) connected with meaning:
prominent -- (adj) very well known and important
sequel -- (n)[C] a book, movie, or play that continues the story of a previous work
brunch -- (n)[C] a meal sometimes eaten in the late morning that combines breakfast and lunch
dinch -- (n)[C] the abbreviation for the consumption of meals during the hours after lunch but before dinner
fabulicious -- (adj) fabulous and delicious
indispensable -- (adj) too important not to have; necessary:
bokehlicious -- (adj) delicious bohek / blurring effect of an image
droidfooding -- (n) testing products on Android platform
dogfooding -- Eating your own dog food, also called
dogfooding, is a slang term used to reference a scenario in which a company (usually, a software company) uses its own product to demonstrate the quality and capabilities of the product.
insanity -- (n) [U] mental illness
Linsanity -- (n) [U] Lin + insanity
dramedy -- (n) [C] Comedy-drama (dramedy, comedrama, comedic drama, or seriocomedy) is a genre of theatre, film, and television that combines elements of comedy and drama, having both humourous and sometimes serious content
fornication -- (n)[U] formal disapproving sex with someone who you are not married to
no-rhythmia -- (n)[U] not having any forms of rhythmic movements
arrhythmia -- (n) [U] Cardiac dysrhythmia (also known as
arrhythmia or
irregular heartbeat) is any of a large and heterogeneous group of conditions in which there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart. The heartbeat may be too fast or too slow, and may be regular or irregular. A heart beat that is too fast is called
tachycardia and a heart beat that is too slow is called
bradycardia.
spork -- (n)[C] or a
foon is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines.
typhooliday / typhoo-liday -- (n)[C] A word created by Locky, meaning a holiday brought about by the issue of high intensity Typhoon signals
Resources:
Jason Mraz - Wordplay (Video) @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABFtbYKW-QY
Word Play @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_play
Portmanteau @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau
Morpheme @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphemes
Dinch @ Urbandictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dinch
Lewis Carroll @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll
Jabberwocky @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabberwocky
Digitalrev Bokehlicious T-shirt
http://www.digitalrev.com/product/bokehlicious-t-shirt/MTAwMDYzMw_A_A
Droidfooding: After Years Of Giving Employees iPhones, Posters At Facebook HQ Beg Them To Test Android @ TC
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/24/facebook-droidfooding/
Californication @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Californication_(TV_series)
House, M.D. | Episode 3-02 Transcript | Cane & Able @ zg85
http://zg85.com/uploads/HouseMD/transcripts/s3/house-302.htm
Spork @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spork
Types of Wordplay @ Education.com
http://www.education.com/reference/article/types-wordplay/
List of Forms of Word Play @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_word_play
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphemes
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/semantic?q=semantic+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/prominent_1?q=prominent
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/sequel?q=sequel+
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/brunch?q=brunch
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dinch
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/indispensable?q=indispensable+
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/american-english/insanity?q=insanity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramedy
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/fornicate?q=fornication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhythmia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spork
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2011/06/culture-typhoo-lidays-britons-and.html
