Words

Some stupid made up words come into existence by spontaneous generation, like de-planing. I’ll spare you my rant on that one.

I can’t stop stupid-word-spontaneous-generation, otherwise known as stuspontination. I can fight it with clever made up words, clevords. This is not a new idea. My words are called pormanteau words. We use a lot of them. Smog is one – smoke and fog.

Lewis Carroll was the best at portmanteau creation. In Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty explains, “Well, ‘slithy’ means “lithe and slimy” and ‘mimsy’ is “flimsy and miserable”. You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

I’ll set aside my clevords for a moment. Ponder this. We use the word love for the latest novel we read and for how we feel about our spouse. I think we should make up a new word for each kind of love we feel. I’ve started a list.

Portmanteau	Meaning	Root Words
lolings	the love between siblings	love, siblings
chove	love for your children	children, love
lolife	love for your spouse	love of my life
mammalo	love for your mom	mamma, love
daddero	love for your dad	daddy, hero
pupperoni	love for your dog	puppy, pepperoni

Do you have any to add? Or better forms of what I have?