The portmanteau -- clever literary device? Or over-used piece of rubbish?
What's a portmanteau? It's a synthesis of two words. A combination, if you will. Take, for instance, "two words" -- that can be combined into the portmanteau, "twords". Don't ask me to pronounce it.
Anyway, the portmanteau has been widely used by poets and lyricists since... well, since language, really. Shakespeare used them to shoehorn more words into the iambic pentameter, in which he wrote most of his works. The word, itself, was coined by Lewis Carroll in 1872, after the hinged packing-case of the same name. Portmanteaus... er... "portmanteaux", actually, appear in the Bible, in Italian arias, anything to do with verse or lyrics. It is for this reason that portmanteaux have been used into cliché.
Most of the 21st century's really annoying words are portmanteaux. The most recent example being "veepstakes". Ugh... just typing that makes me want to vomit. But, I must continue to analyze it to death, so as to make everyone hate the "word" as much as I do.
Taken at face value, "veepstakes" is a synthesis of the nonsense word "veep" (a pronounced version of "VP", the abbreviation for "vice president"), and "sweepstakes". I'm not sure on this, but I think "sweepstakes" might even be a portmanteau. Thereby making "veepstakes" all the more abberant, in that it's a portmanteau of a portmanteau.
Now, "veepstakes" is defined as an American journalism slang term used to describe the list of vice-presidential nominees chosen by a presidential candidate and the subsequent suspence over which one will be chosen as a running-mate. It was first used in a political newsletter during the 1988 presidential election and has been used by every media outlet during every subsequent election.
I think it was David Letterman who brought up the fact that "veepstakes" doesn't make sense as a word and that it should have died after its first use, or at least kept its usage restricted to the person who coined it. Unfortunately, it's the politically-motivated minds of newspeople like Jack Cafferty, Lou Dobbs, and Dan Rather that latched onto the word and kept it alive long past its expiry date.
Then, there are portmanteaux that are created specially for a particular person or group. The one that stands out is "Governator", which is the unofficial title given Arnold Schwarzenegger by the tabloid-news upon his election to the post of governor of California. "Governator" is a synthesis of "governor" (in US politics, the chief executive of a state) and "Terminator", a film series in which Schwarzenegger played the title character. This portmanteau can never be used again -- once Schwarzenegger leaves office, "Governator" will follow him for the rest of his life, but once he knocks off, "governator" will no longer have a practical usage.
Of course, no one can possibly forget "labradoodle". Gih.. that's almost as bad as "veepstakes"... hence the nasty colour. The word itself is a combination of "labrador" and "poodle", two breeds of Canis domesticus... dogs. The breed that the word describes is also a combination of labrador and poodle.
In fact, many of the "engineered" dog breeds are named in this way -- "puggle" ("pug" and "beagle"), "beagador" ("beagle" and "labrador"), "chihuachsund" ("chihuahua" and "dachshund"). It suggests a lack of creativity on the part of the breeders. Any idiot can manufacture a name by combining two other names -- in that vein, you could call me "Spinbastian", a synthesis of "Spiny" and "Sebastian".
Then, there are portmanteaux that people insist on using, despite their having been obsolete for some time (the words, not the people, that is). "Claymation", for one. "Japanimation", for another.
"Claymation", being a combination of "clay" and "animation", refers to the practise of stop-motion animation, inasmuch as clay is usually the substance being used to animate. But, people have started using "claymation" to refer to all forms of stop-motion, whether clay is the primary compound or not. I did a stop-motion thing of my collection of Crash Dummies with my Game Boy Camera back in '98 -- the figures are made of moulded plastic, not clay, and yet, in this day and age, it would be called "claymation". Despite the fact there is no clay within miles of the animation.
"Japanimation" is known nowadays as anime. It's a synthesis of "Japan" and "animation", as the design basis for the characters and settings are all based on Japanese manga techniques. Fortunately, I scarecely hear "Japanimation" anymore. Between otaku, it's always called "anime", never "Japanimation".
And, finally, one that is particularly apropos, given the recent release of the final expansion pack for The Sims 2 -- "SuckuROM". It's a synthesis of "suck" (as in "you --") and "SecuROM", the Sony anti-piracy programme that I can't seem to shut up about. The portmanteau references the fact that SecuROM often causes problems with the OS on which it is being run, affecting all system functions, instead of just the functions of the host software.
I could go on and on and on about technology-related portmanteaux, but I'm getting tired of typing.
So, in conclusion, the portmanteau, though it may once have been nifty, is now so completely pat that it's almost rubbish.
Er... maybe I should go a bit lighter on the Britishisms (blast! Another portmanteau -- they're weaselly little sods, eh?).
I mean, portmanteaux are so terribly over-used, they're cliché now.
Until next time, how about perusing a list of portmanteaux? You can curse them on your own.
Posted by theniftyperson
at 1:14 AM CDT
Updated: Saturday, 6 September 2008 1:12 AM CDT
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