7 ms·

> Also, 'portmantout' (not, I think, 'portemantout', since the original is 'portmanteau') involves only one change in vowel sound, right, not any major shift in

> Also, 'portmantout' (not, I think, 'portemantout', since the original is 'portmanteau') involves only one change in vowel sound, right, not any major shift in pronunciation? Right on both counts. "Porte" means "door", "port" means "to carry/wear". The latter is the word used in "portmanteau". I also agree "portmantout" sounds nice, and very similar to "portmanteau".

JadeNB 8y ago
> "Porte" means "door", "port" means "to carry/wear". Thanks for the polite correction. (I said 'porte' when dissecting the word in my original post, even though I did get the word 'portmanteau' as a whole correct.)
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  Porte means wear/carry as a verb in the imperative form or singular indicative forms; it can also mean a door, probably for weird etymological reasons. In the case of porte-manteau it absolutely means carry. I don't know if this common kind of construction in French is technically supposed to be built from the imperative or indicative, which would alternate the way of building a corresponding construct in English. If it's the imperative, such constructs (garde-manger, promène-couillon, tire-au-flanc, lèche-vitrine, mange-mort) would be written like carry-all (you'd have keep-food, lick-window, eat-dead). If it's the indicative, and in particular the 3rd person (he/she/one), as in « [l'objet qui] porte [des] manteaux », then a corresponding English construct would be carries-all, keeps-food, … which just sounds very weird in English. I don't know what the official underlying grammatical construct is, but just trying to kind of keep the French construct while changing it slightly seems completely out of place. Furthermore, nowhere does the idea of porte-manteau carry any meaning as to the exercice of the original post which looks for partially-overlapping words. Edit: That last paragraph of mine is just wrong. I just read Wikipedia and indeed the English word actually contains the ideas of overlap/truncation. That comes from the redefining of portemanteau (as a coat hanger, or the original term of the person carrying a coat) into a suitcase that splits in two equal parts. I just always assumed it described the way porte and manteau were stuck together (in which there's no overlap/truncation), instead of the suitcase meaning. * I still maintain there's just no reason for the English word to have been bastardized into portmanteau. * Also the fact that portmanteau/portemanteau is used to describe words being combined in a different way to how porte and manteau are combined just seems needlessly confusing.
jgtrosh 8y ago
Port as in to carry/wear is the noun, whereas porte is the corresponding verb. Porte-manteau is the logical form for the combined noun/adjective (as in carry-all, see-all). In English the common form for combining meanings is e.g. goal-keeper which in French translates as gardien de but ; porte-manteau is one of the classic cases where it's shortened to verb-noun. (For gardien de but it would be garde-but, which is weird, I guess it sounds like garde-manger.) Port-manteau just wouldn't sound right.

JadeNB 8y ago

> "Porte" means "door", "port" means "to carry/wear". Thanks for the polite correction. (I said 'porte' when dissecting the word in my original post, even though I did get the word 'portmanteau' as a whole correct.)

jgtrosh 8y ago
Porte means wear/carry as a verb in the imperative form or singular indicative forms; it can also mean a door, probably for weird etymological reasons. In the case of porte-manteau it absolutely means carry. I don't know if this common kind of construction in French is technically supposed to be built from the imperative or indicative, which would alternate the way of building a corresponding construct in English. If it's the imperative, such constructs (garde-manger, promène-couillon, tire-au-flanc, lèche-vitrine, mange-mort) would be written like carry-all (you'd have keep-food, lick-window, eat-dead). If it's the indicative, and in particular the 3rd person (he/she/one), as in « [l'objet qui] porte [des] manteaux », then a corresponding English construct would be carries-all, keeps-food, … which just sounds very weird in English. I don't know what the official underlying grammatical construct is, but just trying to kind of keep the French construct while changing it slightly seems completely out of place. Furthermore, nowhere does the idea of porte-manteau carry any meaning as to the exercice of the original post which looks for partially-overlapping words. Edit: That last paragraph of mine is just wrong. I just read Wikipedia and indeed the English word actually contains the ideas of overlap/truncation. That comes from the redefining of portemanteau (as a coat hanger, or the original term of the person carrying a coat) into a suitcase that splits in two equal parts. I just always assumed it described the way porte and manteau were stuck together (in which there's no overlap/truncation), instead of the suitcase meaning. * I still maintain there's just no reason for the English word to have been bastardized into portmanteau. * Also the fact that portmanteau/portemanteau is used to describe words being combined in a different way to how porte and manteau are combined just seems needlessly confusing.

jgtrosh 8y ago

Port as in to carry/wear is the noun, whereas porte is the corresponding verb. Porte-manteau is the logical form for the combined noun/adjective (as in carry-all, see-all). In English the common form for combining meanings is e.g. goal-keeper which in French translates as gardien de but ; porte-manteau is one of the classic cases where it's shortened to verb-noun. (For gardien de but it would be garde-but, which is weird, I guess it sounds like garde-manger.) Port-manteau just wouldn't sound right.