4 ms·

English portmanteaus rarely include all of a word. Motel, smog, brunch, cronut, spork, sitcom, cyborg, Velcro...

strbean 1y ago
I didn't realize the term applied to stuff like `sitcom`, I thought it was a requirement that the result used part of the start of one word and the end of another. TIL!
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > I didn't realize the term applied to stuff like `sitcom` It doesn't. You might note that e.g. wiktionary categorizes motel as a "blend", but sitcom as a "shortening".
  - foobarbecue 1y ago
    Motel and sitcom are portmanteaus -- they're some of the most common examples used when defining the term "portmanteau" . "Blend" and "shortening" are necessary-but-not-sufficient synonyms for portmanteau. Your error here is that you imply "because it's a blend, it's not a portmanteau." All portmanteaus are blends. All portmanteaus are shortenings. Some blends are portmanteaus. Some shortenings are portmanteaus.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
"Rarely"? Did you do any investigation at all? I meant it when I pointed out that the standard pattern includes all of one of the words. Looking at https://byjus.com/english/portmanteau/ https://byjus.com/english/portmanteau/, because it was easy to find: guesstimate, mocktail, popsicle, breathalyser, athleisure, bromance, frenemy, tragicomic, docudrama, webinar, Medicare, listicle, fanzine, scromelet, chillax, frappuccino, permafrost, staycation, workaholic... guesstimate, bromance, and tragicomic include all of each of their source words. And just by looking at your list, you can see why the norm is to include all of one word - those are difficult to interpret for English speakers. Brunch, spork, and sitcom are well understood, though sitcom is more likely to be seen as an abbreviation than a combination. Probably cronut will be understood too, if someone's looking at one. Motel is obviously related to hotel, plus an inexplicable m. Smog is guessable. Cyborg and Velcro are completely opaque; those are just "words".
- foobarbecue 1y ago
  You're right, I shouldn't have said "rarely" -- thanks for helping me learn! You, also, shouldn't have said the first word is "usually" included. With help from an LLM and python looking at the 86 common portmanteaus, I found that the numbers are: count percent both 5 6.4 first word only 29 24.4 (you said "usually," I said "rarely") neither 39 50.0 second word only 25 19.2 The source material (I also downloaded its python and checked it line-by line, looked correct): https://chatgpt.com/share/69020808-0610-800e-81aa-692ec29346ad https://chatgpt.com/share/69020808-0610-800e-81aa-692ec29346... By the way, I called the code "portmantotal.py" :-) Cyborg was not opaque to me, because I grew up reading science fiction so was very familiar with the concept of the cybernetic organism. My parents explained the origin of "velcro" to me when I was a kid and thought it was cool that it had two sides. EDIT: While playing with the data in python, I realized that chatgpt included 8 duplicates in the above list originally. I will fix that and recalculate the numbers. Also, I was thinking about compound words, like seatbelt, schoolbus, butterfly and marshmallow, where all of both words is included -- I don't consider those portmanteaus. And yet, the "both" category in my list is interesting: "covidiot" works because the words overlap, and "blogosphere" adds an extra letter. "Manspread," in my opinion, is also a portmanteau but it's hard to explain why I wouldn't just call it a "compound word" . Probably either because it's derived from "mansplain" or because it adds a noun to a verb whereas compound words are usually noun + noun.

I didn't realize the term applied to stuff like `sitcom`, I thought it was a requirement that the result used part of the start of one word and the end of another. TIL!

thaumasiotes 1y ago
> I didn't realize the term applied to stuff like `sitcom` It doesn't. You might note that e.g. wiktionary categorizes motel as a "blend", but sitcom as a "shortening".
- foobarbecue 1y ago
  Motel and sitcom are portmanteaus -- they're some of the most common examples used when defining the term "portmanteau" . "Blend" and "shortening" are necessary-but-not-sufficient synonyms for portmanteau. Your error here is that you imply "because it's a blend, it's not a portmanteau." All portmanteaus are blends. All portmanteaus are shortenings. Some blends are portmanteaus. Some shortenings are portmanteaus.

thaumasiotes 1y ago

"Rarely"? Did you do any investigation at all? I meant it when I pointed out that the standard pattern includes all of one of the words. Looking at https://byjus.com/english/portmanteau/ https://byjus.com/english/portmanteau/, because it was easy to find: guesstimate, mocktail, popsicle, breathalyser, athleisure, bromance, frenemy, tragicomic, docudrama, webinar, Medicare, listicle, fanzine, scromelet, chillax, frappuccino, permafrost, staycation, workaholic... guesstimate, bromance, and tragicomic include all of each of their source words. And just by looking at your list, you can see why the norm is to include all of one word - those are difficult to interpret for English speakers. Brunch, spork, and sitcom are well understood, though sitcom is more likely to be seen as an abbreviation than a combination. Probably cronut will be understood too, if someone's looking at one. Motel is obviously related to hotel, plus an inexplicable m. Smog is guessable. Cyborg and Velcro are completely opaque; those are just "words".

foobarbecue 1y ago
You're right, I shouldn't have said "rarely" -- thanks for helping me learn! You, also, shouldn't have said the first word is "usually" included. With help from an LLM and python looking at the 86 common portmanteaus, I found that the numbers are: count percent both 5 6.4 first word only 29 24.4 (you said "usually," I said "rarely") neither 39 50.0 second word only 25 19.2 The source material (I also downloaded its python and checked it line-by line, looked correct): https://chatgpt.com/share/69020808-0610-800e-81aa-692ec29346ad https://chatgpt.com/share/69020808-0610-800e-81aa-692ec29346... By the way, I called the code "portmantotal.py" :-) Cyborg was not opaque to me, because I grew up reading science fiction so was very familiar with the concept of the cybernetic organism. My parents explained the origin of "velcro" to me when I was a kid and thought it was cool that it had two sides. EDIT: While playing with the data in python, I realized that chatgpt included 8 duplicates in the above list originally. I will fix that and recalculate the numbers. Also, I was thinking about compound words, like seatbelt, schoolbus, butterfly and marshmallow, where all of both words is included -- I don't consider those portmanteaus. And yet, the "both" category in my list is interesting: "covidiot" works because the words overlap, and "blogosphere" adds an extra letter. "Manspread," in my opinion, is also a portmanteau but it's hard to explain why I wouldn't just call it a "compound word" . Probably either because it's derived from "mansplain" or because it adds a noun to a verb whereas compound words are usually noun + noun.