PortmanteauWords

Think about the possibilities, for poesy and/or humorous effect, of combining two words, e.g.:

• porcelinen — shiny white finely-woven cloth (porcelain + linen)
• chlorophilosophy — plant-based wisdom (chlorophyll + philosophy)
• alabastard — a pale unpleasant person (alabaster + bastard)
• foreveridian — permanently bluish-green (forever + viridian)
• perfictional — flawlessly false (perfect + fiction)

... as per Chapter VI of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass wherein Humpty Dumpty explains the poem "Jabberwocky":

'That'll do very well,' said Alice: 'and "slithy"?'

'Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau — there are two meanings packed up into one word.'

(cf. TooClever (5 Apr 2004), ...)

TopicLanguage - TopicHumor - TopicPoetry - 2007-03-24

(correlates: AcronymOverload, JudyReWilderness, ParkwayDelay, ...)