Talk:List of portmanteaus

possible additions

squircle from square and circle, trit (bit + trinary), tryte (byte + trinary) 110.175.156.215 (talk) 02:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)anonymous

Chinglish, Franglais, Spanglish

Was surpised to find these quite well known and well used portmanteaux were not on a list which includes examples far less familiar. They are certainly not objectionable. Some examples should contain a (cf.) note to refer readers to comparable examples. I have done this with these three. Myles325a (talk) 05:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• They aren't objectionable nearly so much as they aren't well-know, well-used, or eve properly descriptive of what they're supposedly combining. Perhaps these words are used commonly in Europe, but they aren't in the United States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.201.44.14 (talk) 00:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

fugly / "fucking ugly"

Any objection to adding this? It's persistent, well-known and has a [Wiktionary entry] describing it as a blend.

Validity of certain items on the list

Portmanteau, as is understood by most, was coined (in its modern usage, don't get pedantic on me) by Lewis Caroll. I would argue that some entries don't meet the basic criteria of "two meanings packed up into one word".

In particular, the ones derived from two names:

Brangelina Krepkenstein Debian Mattell Mitel Waitrose

All of the examples derive their meaning not from the squishing of words together, but from the meaning attributed to those names after. Debra and Ian? Meaningless. Debian, however is not, but the meaning is not derived from being a portmanteau, but because of what Debian has become.

Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dirril (talk • contribs) 01:06, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree. Half of these terms are either buzzwords associated with a passing fad or used exclusively by an incredibly small group of people and warrant at least some designation signifying them as such. "Pornado" and "Blatitude" make the list; where are "hacktivists", "ridonculous" and other such portmanteaux-of-the-now?

Osiriscorleone (talk) 07:32, 9 July 2011 (UTC)osiriscorleone

Most of this list reads like a copy and paste from urbandictionary.com. I think this list should be established portmanteaux like guesstimation, which has been around since the 1940's. Not blaccent or pornado or fratire or anything that is fad words from the last decade. I'm highly tempted to go through the entire list and delete half the stuff on it.

IManOM (talk) 15:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll back you up on that.

Osiriscorleone (talk) 21:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Selection

The heading of the article currently says that, "A selection of portmanteau words of the English language is listed below." For future editors, what is the basis of this selection or what should it be? Hyacinth (talk) 23:53, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

links?

Should the base terms be italicized and linked? For example, should it be as follows? Especially when pipes would be necessary, as shown.

• beefalo, from beef and buffalo
• Brangus, from Brahman and Angus breeds of cattle

   → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 16:42, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Obvious portmanteaus in need of citation

What is the procedure for adding portmanteaus whose roots are so obvious that finding an official verification of the definition is difficult? (see Hamburglar)

It seems like all the entries with a citation needed tag get deleted pretty quickly. 140.211.82.5 (talk) 02:42, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

On second (or third) thought, Hamburglar may be plainly WP:OBVIOUS. But we should be very careful about adding items that rely solely on being "obvious" and we should lean more towards sourced (or explained/sourced in the linked article) items. If it needs a CN tag upon addition, I'd think 2-3 times before adding it. This article shouldn't be a collection of every one of these under the sun. DP76764 (Talk) 14:32, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, that makes sense. I think the Hamburglar is enough of a global icon to appear on this list, but in the future I will make sure to only add new ones when the linked article explains the origin too. 140.211.82.5 (talk) 21:39, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Juneteenth, a soon to be national public holiday in the United States that combines June with nineteenth. This corresponds with June 19th, 1865 when freedom from slavery was proclaimed in Texas.

Double-Ups

What are people's thoughts on including things multiple times on the article in different sections? Examples currently in the article include:

• Brexit (Arts, literature and enntertainment as well as in general)
• Bromance (Arts, literature and entertainment as well as in general)
• Wikipedia (Organisations and companies as well as in internet and computing)

I haven't searched the whole article for these double-ups, but I personally think they should only appear once. JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 06:34, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be a list of actual words?

I see a lot of things in the list that are the names of products, not actual english words. Is there any reason to include these? Volunteer1234 (talk) 04:27, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Proper names can be portmanteaus too, AFAIK. (so, yes, there is reason to keep them) DP76764 (Talk) 15:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm saying it is trivial WP:OLIST that a brand name is a portmanteau since it not actually a word and it is just a common way of inventing product names. Volunteer1234 (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that policy deals with the existence of a list as a whole, versus items on the list. Maybe RfC and see what kind of consensus there is? DP76764 (Talk) 19:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Malaysia

I dispute the inclusion of Malaysia in this list. The proposed justification at Malaysia (Wiktionary) is not cited. The article at Malaysia gives only the etymology as "a combination of the word 'Malay' and the Latin-Greek suffix '-sia'/-σία." with a citation (a book, so it's not trivial to research further here, but it's better than no citation at all). There is some discussion at this Quora page giving three possible theories -- two being those I just listed, the other being "a combination of Malay + Asia" (which would then also be a portmanteau), but that is not a WP:RS. Since the only one of these bearing a citation is clearly /not/ a portmanteau, it should not be on this list (which is approaching WP:LISTCRUFT already). HalJor (talk) 04:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Recurring invalid entries

I've reverted (many of these for the second or third time) a number of entries that do not belong on this page because they do not qualify as portmanteaus. Please verify the etymologies before adding any new entries -- many of these that I reverted had linked to their Wiktionary pages which do not confirm the alleged portmanteaus described on this page. Yes, it's neat that a word like "grumble" looks like it combines "groan" and "mumble", but the etymology on Wiktionary has nothing to do with that. Examples that I removed in just this round:

• wikt:ambergris
• wikt:artichoke
• wikt:barrel
• wikt:because
• wikt:blather
• wikt:blumpkin
• wikt:blush
• wikt:clasp
• wikt:flare
• wikt:flounce
• wikt:friendship
• wikt:glimmer
• wikt:glitter
• wikt:glitz
• wikt:grasp
• wikt:groan
• wikt:grumble
• wikt:icicle
• wikt:idiocracy
• wikt:jangle
• wikt:latch
• wikt:menopause
• wikt:neither
• wikt:never
• wikt:sausage
• wikt:shimmer
• wikt:snatch
• wikt:splosh
• wikt:stroll
• wikt:swipe
• wikt:swoop
• wikt:wheelbarrel
• wikt:wriggle

General prefixes and suffixes ("tri-", "-ship") also don't count, and this page is barely maintainable as it is -- we don't need redlinks that aren't notable enough to get their own entries or even be mentioned in other articles. HalJor (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

@HalJor: Within the last two days, I've independently deleted snatch and stroll (linked to the DAB page rather than Wiktionary) as false etymologies. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more. It might be worth asking for pending-changes protection at WP:RFPP. Narky Blert (talk) 17:33, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Social and Economic Background of Blending

The following are cited in Social and Economic Background of Blending, but many are awkward or have fallen out of use. Please refrain from adding them to the list unless there is an outside dictionary source for confirmation.

• blatterature from blatter and literature (1512)
• niniversity from ninny and university (around 1590)
• foolelosopher from fool and philosopher (1549)
• knavigator from knave and navigator (the late sixteenth – early seventeenth century)
• unisalphabeth from universal and alphabet (at the beginning of the seventeenth century)

• scribaceous from scribe and loquacious (1846)
• catalo from cattle and buffalo (1889)
• solemncholy from solemn and melancholy (1772)
• clantastical from clandestine and fantastical (1803)
• astronography from astronomy and geography (1856)
• wiglomeration from wig and conglomeration (1858)

• balloonacy from balloon and lunacy (Dickens 1864)

• rocking-horse-fly from horse-fly and rocking-horse
• bread-and-butterfly from bread-and-butter and butterfly
• snap-dragon-fly from snapdragon and dragonfly

• indigomania from Indigo children and mania
• videot from video and idiot
• Euroshima from Europe and Hiroshima

• windoor from window and door
• horbra from horse and zebra
• enormouse from enormous and mouse

• potamo from potato and tomato
• grapear from grape and pear
• applemon from apple and lemon
• wall-jack from fraudulently access Facebook (hijack) and posts to wall

• sleepiphany from sleep and epiphany
• entreporneur from entrepreneur and porn
• subtweet from subliminal and tweet

• Auckgeddon from Auckland and Armageddon
• Bramageddon from bra donating and Armageddon
• Infogeddon from information and Armageddon (lots of frightening scandals because of mass media leaks)
• econogeddon from economy and Armageddon (permanent scare of financial crises)
• jobageddon from job and Armageddon (scary of losing one's job)
• aquageddon from aqua and Armageddon
• starmageddon from star and Armageddon
• stormageddon from storm and Armageddon (frights, connected with natural phenomena)
• stupid-geddon from stupid and Armageddon (low opinion about authorities)
• disastrophe from disaster and catastrophe

• wall-jack from fraudulently access Facebook (hijack) and posts to wall
• Neature from neat and nature (nature exploration through video)
• twatch from Twitter and watch and twatching = Twitter and watching
• Mocial from mobile and social
• Twiple from Twitter and people (parties for Twitter subscribers, mainly, virtual ones)
• Twittership from Twitter and friendship/relationship
• eppraise from electronic and appraise (via Net assessment of real estate)

References

Enix150 (talk) 05:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Syllabic abbreviations

The "See Also" section includes a link to Syllabic abbreviation which "is usually formed from the initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol = International + police. It is a variant of the acronym. ... Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from portmanteaus, which combine two words without necessarily taking whole syllables from each." There are a good many such examples on this page (including Interpol) that would not qualify under this definition. Several of these examples also could be considered contractions per portmanteau, as "contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence". Removing these would make this already-long list more manageable. HalJor (talk) 16:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup

This page has hat notes regarding original research and citations for verification. It has also a corresponding (linked) page on the sister project at Wiktionary. In attempt to keep this page manageable and within the scope of the Wiktionary project, it should not contain every term that we can find. If the only source is Wiktionary (which itself is tenuously sourced), it should not be on this list. If the term has only a passing mention in a Wikipedia article and barely has meaning outside that context, I'd argue it doesn't belong here either. Otherwise, this page just becomes WP:LISTCRUFT. HalJor (talk) 17:33, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

subtweet, from subliminal and tweet ??

Wiktionary has from sub- under and tweet. There is no proof of Olga ‘s proposed dictionary etymology. --AliceBzh (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

qultists

• Qultists, from QAnon and cultists. Not a portemanteau word.

Thanks to User:Mhawk10 who removed it. --AliceBzh (talk) 21:24, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Pokemon

It might be a bad idea to put Squirtle on the list here, since there are far, far, far more Pokemon whose names are portmanteaus..... it might be more than half of them. —Soap— 21:24, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Where would I put "skyan"?

In the algicosathlon community, there's a relatively popular color called "skyan" that is a blend of sky and cyan. Thing is, I don't know what category a color would fall into, so is anyone willing to provide any help? Thanks :3

2001:56A:FA36:9C00:7D75:A0D6:9DDE:4C5C (talk) 02:06, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

words from different languages

portmanteau is an example of a word in English derived from two French words.

So any objections to the following being listed as portmanteaus?

• television, helicopter, automobile, telephone etc. Roots are from Greek/Latin [1]
• karaoke
  • kara (JPN: empty)
  • oke (JPN:okesutora=orchestra)
• window [2]
  • vindr (Old Norse: wind)
  • auga (Old Norse: eye)
• nostril
  • nosu (Old English: nose)
  • thȳr(e)l (Old English: hole) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aufumy (talk • contribs) 07:28, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Words to add to the list

Here are the words in Category:Portmanteaus that are not already in this list, before it is deleted:

• Conservadox
• Daxit
• Dehomag
• Karaoke
• Konami
• Mansplaining
• Mathemagician
• Microsoft
• Pingdemic
• Polexit
• Renesmee (name)
• Retronym
• Spexit
• Trashion
• Twosday
• Westsplaining

The category also contain The Lensbury, which to me doesn't seem to be a portmanteau or be related to one in any obvious way. —Kri (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Nothing in the list above is verified as being a portmanteau word, merely by dint of appearing on the category page. The fact that a word is in Category:Portmanteaus means that one editor thought it was worth adding that category to the article. But editors at Wikipedia are not reliable sources, and neither are category pages. If these words can be verified as being portmanteau words by a reliable source, then by all means add them to the article, along with a citation to the source. Mathglot (talk) 03:00, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

On the etymological origin of "cryptography"

I noticed that the etimological origin of cryptography is cited as coming "from κεκρυμμένος (hidden) and Γραφή (writing)". It seems weird to me since the most obvious connection seems to be κρυπτός (as opposed to κρυμμένος), and it's even cited as such in the Wikitionary entry for crypto- which is itself cited as the etymological origin for cryptography.

I guess my question is: Is there a reason for this?

A list of possible solutions come to mind:

• Leave the article as is in regards to this word.
• Change the origin to either crypto- or κρυπτός.
• Discard the word altogether, as it doesn't seem to follow the convention set by the rest of the words in the article by including direct references to the Greek and Latin origins of word. Basically, I argue that if this word can be accepted as a portmanteau, words like metronome should also be considered.

VicenteGarzaReyna (talk) 13:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Recent restoration of unsourced material

Hi, Doug. I recently removed unsourced material in the article, which you reverted in this edit, restoring the unsourced content. Per our WP:Verifiability policy, this content should be sourced with citations to reliable sources, just as content in any article should be. As it says at WP:LISTVERIFY:

"Stand-alone lists are subject to Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines for articles, including verifiability and citing sources."

The person removing content from an article doesn't need any justification if the content is unsourced; the WP:BURDEN to provide citations is on the person who wants to keep the material in the article. I'm issuing a challenge to add citations for the unsourced material you restored. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:34, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Verifiability does not mean in-line sourced, rather that it may be found readily, which in the case of a bluelinked name is a cinch. Look at any surname page for instance. Doug butler (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

That's not quite what verifiability says:

• While you are correct that verifiability means that "it may be found readily", you didn't finish the sentence. Verifiability means that "it may be found readily in a reliable source". That does not include finding it in a Wikipedia article, because Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
• Verifiability does mean inline-sourced, if someone challenges an unsourced assertion, and I challenged it. (And I am, again.)

As the person who has re-added unsourced items to the article, the burden of sourcing them is now on you. Are you planning to add citations for them? Or do you believe that items in the list that are blue-linked to Wikipedia articles about them are not required to be sourced here? Or what exactly are you saying? For now, I've removed Accenture, Alitalia, Austar, and Binance again as unsourced. I'll pick up with the C's some other time. Mathglot (talk) 05:12, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

C's and D's done. No point posting individual letters further; will just do them if I have time. Mathglot (talk) 10:03, 6 February 2024 (UTC)