ridonkulous!
okay, so this is definitely not a completely original post...but i read this article in the seattle PI today and it made me so excited i just had to share what i learned....
i know my fascination with words is a little bit strange -- but seriously, vocab is a-mazing! so have you ever heard of portmanteaus before? well i hadn't, not until today. they are recorded as first being introduced by william shakespeare in sonnet 63 where he created the word 'trauaild' by combining 'traveled' and 'travailed.' brilliant! but, of course i probably would have had no idea 'trauaild' was an extraordinary word, and not just some strange olde english term -- seeing as almost every other word in shakespeare's work is foreign to me. (sadly) hmmmm.
so anyways, portmanteaus became more widely recognized by the literary genius, good old lewis carroll, when alice gets a lesson in wonderland from humpty dumpty who describes jabberwocky as 'slithy' -- 'well, slithy means lithe and slimy' he said. and so began the trend that we all know so well today:
brunch, motel, smog, metrosexual, mandals, gaydar, chillax, slurve, crunk, bacne, frogurt, justache, jerd, streetball, badong, dancercise, sacrilicious (not sacrilege! -- homer simpson's combination of sacrilege and delicious. hmm), infomercial, bodacious, alphabet (who knew?! alpha + beta), pluot, simulcast, televangelist, mockumentary, tofurky, pixel (picture + element), brangelina, bollywood, dramedy, pokemon, nicorette, viagravation, pictionary, microsoft, frappucino, fantabulous, labradoodle, liger, guesstimate...
...in fact, 'portmanteau' is a portmanteau -- the combo of two french words:
'porter' (trans: to carry) + 'manteau' (trans: cloak) so, we decided shortening words and blending them together (blorphing) could be seen as 'carrying a cloak?!' hmmm. crazy french. anyways, i thought it was interesting.
i know my fascination with words is a little bit strange -- but seriously, vocab is a-mazing! so have you ever heard of portmanteaus before? well i hadn't, not until today. they are recorded as first being introduced by william shakespeare in sonnet 63 where he created the word 'trauaild' by combining 'traveled' and 'travailed.' brilliant! but, of course i probably would have had no idea 'trauaild' was an extraordinary word, and not just some strange olde english term -- seeing as almost every other word in shakespeare's work is foreign to me. (sadly) hmmmm.
so anyways, portmanteaus became more widely recognized by the literary genius, good old lewis carroll, when alice gets a lesson in wonderland from humpty dumpty who describes jabberwocky as 'slithy' -- 'well, slithy means lithe and slimy' he said. and so began the trend that we all know so well today:
brunch, motel, smog, metrosexual, mandals, gaydar, chillax, slurve, crunk, bacne, frogurt, justache, jerd, streetball, badong, dancercise, sacrilicious (not sacrilege! -- homer simpson's combination of sacrilege and delicious. hmm), infomercial, bodacious, alphabet (who knew?! alpha + beta), pluot, simulcast, televangelist, mockumentary, tofurky, pixel (picture + element), brangelina, bollywood, dramedy, pokemon, nicorette, viagravation, pictionary, microsoft, frappucino, fantabulous, labradoodle, liger, guesstimate...
...in fact, 'portmanteau' is a portmanteau -- the combo of two french words:
'porter' (trans: to carry) + 'manteau' (trans: cloak) so, we decided shortening words and blending them together (blorphing) could be seen as 'carrying a cloak?!' hmmm. crazy french. anyways, i thought it was interesting.
posted by r.m. @ 1:34 AM
4 Comments:
At 1:42 AM, February 05, 2007,
Lord Milton Pepperbottom III said…
figure this one out... reading this post makes me remember how much of a NORK you are...
?
?
this one's hard...
At 1:38 PM, February 12, 2007,
Kendra said…
oh how i do miss being inside of such a beautiful head. i hope that you are thinking of coming this way soon. and when you do, you better call us and come see the babies! we miss you! ~kendra
At 3:03 PM, February 13, 2007,
r.m. said…
kendra! so good to hear your lovely internet voice ;o) do you have a blog?? i want to visit it -- please send the addy.
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as for you scuba, how's the traveling? where the heck r u?! and if you're going to call names, in the future, i prefer DERD.
At 10:43 AM, February 20, 2007,
Lord Milton Pepperbottom III said…
touche, m'lady.
as for me... travelling is what it has always been: eye opening, chaotic, intense, beautiful... sometimes hospitalizing... always welcome. wish you could be here. i would love you to be part of this adventure.
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