Also known simply as ‘blends’, portmanteaux are words formed by combining two or more pre-existing words, usually (but not always) the first part of one and the second part of another. The process has remained a popular and inventive means of creating new words for centuries, with some early examples even including major place names like Czechoslovakia (Czech + Slovakia), Tanzania (Tanganyika + Zanzibar) and Budapest, formed from the unification of the earlier cities of Buda and Pest in 1873. Some more modern portmanteaux, however, can appear fairly clumsy – hoolivan is an odd 1980s name for a police van used to observe football crowds, and affluenza was a 1970s psychiatric term referring to a depressive condition affecting prosperous young people – and are often frowned on by more conservative speakers.
The word portmanteau itself dates from the sixteenth century as the name of a type of suitcase or holdall, and was originally borrowed into English from French, where it was used to refer to an attendant or servant who would carry (porte) a person’s cloak (manteau). It was the author Lewis Carroll who first used the term in reference to blended words in his 1871 work Through the Looking-Glass, stating, ‘You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word.’
A blend of balloon and lunatic, the word balloonatic dates from the mid-nineteenth century in English, when it was first used simply to describe someone who is obsessed with hot-air ballooning and other dirigibles. During the First World War, it gained an alternative meaning in military slang when it was used as a nickname for members of the Balloon Squadron who were in charge of airships, barrage balloons and observation balloons. A considerably earlier term, balloonomania, dates back as far as the late eighteenth century and was coined in the years following the Montgolfiers’ first public displays of their hot-air balloons in France in the 1780s.
Buttercup, the common name for the plant Ranunculus and its familiar bright yellow flowers, was first recorded in English in the late 1700s. Despite a popular folk etymology claiming that the flower’s name refers to the notion that butter acquires its bright yellow colour from cows feeding on buttercups, in fact the plants are poisonous to livestock. The name is instead simply a blend of two considerably older names for the plant, gold-cups and butter-flower, both of which date back to the sixteenth century.
Meaning to ‘coerce’ or ‘persuade’, especially through flattery or obsequiousness, the verb cajole has been used in English since the mid-seventeenth century. First adopted into the language from French, the word’s earlier history and etymology are uncertain. With no apparent single source, it has been suggested that cajole was perhaps originally a blend of two earlier French verbs, enjoliver, meaning ‘to make pretty’, and cageoller, meaning ‘to chatter like a jay or a bird in a cage’.
The word cyborg is formed from a blend of the phrase ‘cybernetic organism’, its coinage typically credited to the American scientist (and acclaimed classical pianist) Manfred Clynes. First recorded in 1960, Clynes, in collaboration with fellow scientist Nathan S. Kline, initially used the term to refer to an organism combining both biological and artificial parts, and in particular talked of a mechanically enhanced human being that could withstand long periods in space and so could be used to work in extra-terrestrial environments. Cyborgs were, Clynes theorized, necessary for humanity to reach further into outer space.
A blend of ‘fantastic’ and ‘fabulous’, fantabulous is one of a vast number of creatively and humorously coined adjectives and adverbs now used in English, most dating from the mid- to late twentieth century. Other examples of this type include humongous (perhaps based on ‘huge’ and ‘monstrous’) and ginormous (‘giant’ and ‘enormous’), absotively and posilutely (both formed from ‘absolutely’ and ‘positively’), scuzzy (‘scummy’ and ‘fuzzy’), snazzy (perhaps ‘snappy’ and ‘jazzy’) and bodacious (‘bold’ and ‘audacious’).
First recorded as far back as 1984 but popularized in the 1990s and early twenty-first century, the word netizen is formed from a blend of the phrase ‘internet citizen’, and as such is used somewhat light-heartedly to refer to someone who participates in online communities and discussions, or else simply someone who uses the internet; the equivalent term cybercitizen dates from 1994. Netizen is one of a number of humorous and colloquial coinages dating from the eighties and nineties that pertain to computer use, including netiquette, referring to appropriate online conduct; netocracy, a perceived online democracy (or aristocracy); screenager, a teenager adept at using computers and other technology; vidiot, the computer or online equivalent of a couch potato; and hacktivist, a protestor who hacks into an organization’s computer files.
The word ruckus has been used to refer to a commotion or violent confrontation since the late nineteenth century, although during the Prohibition era in the United States in the early 1900s the word also came to be used as a slang term for strong but poor-quality alcohol, typically known as rookus or ruckus juice. Apparently an American coinage, the word is presumed to be a blend of ruction and rumpus.
The entertainment industries are the source of a vast number of blended words, of which the 1960s American coinage sitcom – a ‘situation comedy’ – is just one. Indeed, in reference to film and television alone, the English language now contains such as terms as mockumentary (US, 1980s), rockumentary (US, 1960s) and shockumentary (US, 1970s); edutainment (US, 1980s), docutainment (US, 1970s) and infotainment (US, 1980s); docudrama (US, 1960s) and docusoap (UK, 1970s); infomercial (US, 1980s) and advertorial (US, 1910s); and both prequel (US, 1950s) and threequel (US, 1980s), first used in reference to Jaws 3-D in 1983.
Formed from a blend of ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’, the word smog was first recorded in English in 1905 and is believed to have originally specifically applied to the polluted atmosphere of London. Of similar meaning are both smaze, a blend of ‘smoke’ and ‘haze’ first coined in 1953 to describe the smoky air of Manhattan, and vog, a portmanteau of ‘volcanic smog’ first recorded in 1987 to describe the choking fumes almost continuously released by Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano.
A zedonk is the offspring of a male zebra and a female donkey. First recorded in 1971 when such a creature was born at Colchester Zoo in Essex, the word is one of a number of similar terms for other so-called zebroid creatures, including the zonkey, the zebrass, the zorse and the donkra, the offspring of a donkey and a female zebra, a rare example of which was born at Haicang Zoo in China in 2011. In fact, the English language contains an assortment of portmanteaux names for similarly hybridized animals, the most familiar examples of which are probably the liger and tigon, the offspring of a lion and a tiger, and domestic breeds like the labradoodle (a Labrador and poodle cross) and the goldendoodle (a golden retriever and poodle cross). Amongst many less familiar examples, however, are the jagupard (the offspring of a male jaguar and a female leopard), the wholphin (the offspring of a whale and a dolphin), the coywolf (from a coyote and wolf) and the beefalo, the offspring of a domestic cow and an American bison.