Portmanteau words, also called blended words or simply portmanteaux, are words that are formed by splicing or merging two other words together. The term portmanteau words comes from Chapter Six of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, in which the character Humpty Dumpty, in explaining the meaning of the word slithy in the poem "Jabberwocky", says: “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." This is a double joke: first, a portmanteau is a suitcase, in which one would “pack” things, like the multiple meanings within portmanteau words; second, portmanteau is itself a compound word, similar to portmanteau words, in that it is from the French words for "carry" – porter – and "cloak" – manteau.
Portmanteau words have been invented for many different areas of life:
Entertainment
- Bombay + Hollywood = Bollywood
- Brad (Pitt) + Angelina (Jolie) = Brangelina
- cyberspace + magazine = cyberzine
- education + entertainment = edutainment
- fan + magazine = fanzine
- glitter + literati = glitterati
Locations
- Channel + Tunnel = Chunnel
- Oxford + Cambridge = Oxbridge
- North (of) + Little Italy = NoLIta (area of New York City)
- South (of) + Houston (Street) = SoHo (area of New York City)
- Triangle + Below + Canal (Street) = TriBeCa (area of New York City)
Weather
- smoke + fog = smog
Events
- talk + marathon = talkathon
- telephone + marathon = telethon
Government
- medical + care = Medicare
- parachute + troops = paratroops
Food
- beef + buffalo = beefalo
- breakfast + lunch = brunch
- clam + tomato = Clamato
- plum + apricot = pluot
- tangerine + pomelo = tangelo
Place
- cafeteria + auditorium = cafetorium
- motor + hotel = motel
Adjective
- gigantic + enormous = ginormous
- man + fantastic = mantastic
Technological Equipment
- camera + recorder = camcorder
- breath + analyzer = breathalyzer
Internet Use
Many words related to blogging and other modern technology usage are portmanteau words:
- web + log = blog
- iPod + broadcasting = podcasting
- blog + broadcast = blogcast
- blog + spam advertising (or) marketing = blam
- blog + beg (for contributions) = bleg
- blog + biosphere = blogosphere
- fake + blog = flog
- mobile (generated) + blog = moblog
- forage + video (on the Internet) = vorage
- school (friends) + Google = Schoogle
