Blends

Whether they start as slips of the tongue or as deliberate witticism, blends, sometimes called portmanteau words (see porter), are a handy way of squeezing the ideas behind two different words into one package. They have probably been around since language began (see flavour for a Latin example), and have certainly been in English since our earliest records. Some are so familiar that we can miss the fact that they are blends: carborundum [L19th] from carbon + corundum; curvaceous [M20th] from curve + vivacious; hokum [E20th] hocus-pocus + bunkum; judder [E20th] jump + shudder; meld [M20th] melt + weld; progesterone [E20th] progestin + luteosterone; Spam [M20th] spiced + ham; sylph [M17th] from sylvestris, Latin ‘of the woods’ + nymph; and transistor [M20th] transfer + resistor.

 Despite its antiquity, shown by words such as *diminish [LME], *parchment [ME], and *taste [ME], the heyday of the blend has been since the 19th century, and the 19th-century master of the blend was Lewis Carroll (1832–98), who not only gave us the term portmanteau for these words but also chortle chuckle + snort; galumph gallop + triumph; mimsy flimsy + miserable; and slithy lithe + slimy.

 One of the joys of word history is that it can make us revise our ideas of what is modern. The minibus (horse-drawn) and wodge (wad + wedge) are mid 19th century. They ate brunch and complained about insinuendos in the late 19th century. The early 20th century created many more modern-sounding blends such as absotively and its companion posilutely; advertorial; affluenza; ambisextrous; irregardless; mingy; motel; and smog. Chunnel appeared in 1907, although the proposed Channel Tunnel did not open until 1994, and the very woke-sounding hir for a neutral pronoun appeared in 1910.

 Recently the overlapping fields of entertainment and electronics have been rich sources of blends. In film, Bollywood [L20th], the film studios of Bombay, has rivalled Hollywood, with many variants such as the Nigerian Nollywood [2002]. Films can be faction [1960s] or bromances [2000s]. Computers have given us the blog from weblog [1990s] and vlog [2000s], netizens, netiquette, hacktivists, and slacktivists [all L20th]. Meeple [2000] (my + people) for the small figures used in some board games is inching its way into more people’s vocabulary.

 Politics has recently been dominated by one type of formation, based on ‘exit’. Grexit, with reference to Greece leaving the Eurozone [1979] was slightly earlier than the ubiquitous Brexit [both 2012], but many more have followed.

 See also emotion, ether, fade, fan, grunge, hassle, melody, nerd, pennant, prime, surf, tantalize, tobacco.