Blends: Blends are made up of
larger parts (sometimes whole parts) of words, usually initial syllables
of other words, sometimes the first part of one word and the last part
of another, combined into a pronounceable `word':
- Shamnesty: blend of sham and amnesty, meaning a
fake amnesty, or something that pretends to be something other than an amnesty, as
in the recent debate over immigration 'reform.'
- Lopomo: blend of low-power mode, i.e., a setting
for electrical and other consumer products that idle at a level
that consumes less power than when being used in full-power mode.
- Pedlock: blend of pedestrian and gridlock: Pedestrian
gridlock.
- Mockney: blend of Mock and cockney. Mock Cockney,
a.k.a. "Estuary English."
- starchitect Blend of star and architect An architect who
is a 'star'.
- cosmeceutical Blend of cosmetic(s) and pharmaceutical A
pharmaceutical product that also has cosmetic uses, e.g. Botox.
- Glamazon Blend of glamour and Amazon The glamour of
amazons, Greeks heroes, etc. (as depicted in recent movies such as "Troy" etc.)
- toyetic Blend of
toy + -etic 'suffix used to make adjectives out of nouns.' A character or
thing found in a movie that can easily be made into a mass-marketed toy, used to earn more
profits for the filmmaker.
- Mobisode A blend of mobile and
episode. A brief episode of a video programme designed to
be viewed on a mobile phone.
- Premercial: A blend of Pre- and commercial-- a
commercial that pops up on your computer screen before
the website you've intended to load comes on.
- Hatriot A blend of
hate and patriot, i.e. a person who fancies himself a patriot, but is full of
hate.
- Obamapaloosa A blend of Barack Obama
the African-American Senator from Illinois' and lallapaloosa 'Something
outstandingly good of its kind'. See OED definition of
lallapaloosa here. 'Obamapaloosa' refers to the extreme hype and publicity given
to Mr. Obama at the Democratic Convention in Boston (July 2004).
- infoganda: A blend of information + propaganda.
See this description.
- humint Blend of human + intelligence; a term used by CIA agents,
etc. Contrasts with rumint, a blend of rumor + intelligence, which
isn't worth much.
- Fortran (For[mula] Tran[slating] [System]): a computer programming language.
- Ebonics (Ebon[y] + [Phon]ix);
- Wyotana
(Wyo[ming] + [Mon]tana);
- racino (rac[etrack]+[cas]ino) a
racetrack with gambling machines (slots etc.);
- movieoke (movie + karaoke)
- gitmoize 'Gitmo' is an abbreviated form of Guantanamo, the base we
control in Cuba, where prisoners from the war on terror were taken. Gitmo + ize
is a verb meaning 'take the techniques for extraction of 'intelligence' from prisoners at
Gitmo, and apply them in Iraq,' as in "We decided to gitmo-ize Abu Graib."
- cyborg: cybernetic +
organism. Note how 'cyborg' is then shortened to Borg in
some usages (e.g. StarTrek).
- gentlemandatory ('mandatory for a gentleman'),
- 'Froogle'
( Frugal + Google);
- 'threepeat' (three +
repeat) --something repeated three times;
- 'prebuttal'
(preemptive + rebuttal --a rebuttal made even before the
claims that are being rebutted have been made);
- Quackupuncture
(sham acupuncture),
- kubris (the hu[bris] of a person like (Stanley)
Ku[brick];
- St. Grottlesex: The so-called 'St. Grottlesex schools' (Groton, St.
Paul's, St. Mark's, St.
George's and Middlesex, regarded by some as playgrounds of the spoiled rich). The
term is
a blend using the St. part of St. Paul's, St. Mark's, and St. George's, then
part
of Groton, combined with Middlesex.
- TriBeCa (triangle below Canal Street),
- NoLita (neighborhood in New York City that is North of Little
Italy)
- metrosexual (met(ro) + (hete)rosexual, and even
retrosexual)
- Gestapo (Ge[heime] Sta[ats] Po[lizei], the secret police
in Nazi Germany),
- Stasi (The East German secret police Sta[ats]Si[cherheitsdienst])
- glitterati (from glitter + literatti, digerati, causeratti, and now
blatherati, chateratti and
ditherati.
- greige (Gr[ay]+[b]eige)
- smog (smoke+ fog),
- modem
(modulator/demodulator),
- mockumentary (mo[ck]+[do]cumentary) (and from there we go on to schlockumentary,
rockumentary, punkumentary),
- ficto-facto (a sort of half factual, half fictitious account of something)
- rumorazzi (rumor + [pappar]azzi),
- rebar
(re[inforced steel] bar),
- brunch,
- Cylenol (Cyanide + Tylenol),
- knowbot
(`software robot'),
- Frelimo,
- Kolkhoz (Russian),
- moga (Japanese, from
mo[dern]
girl),
- sekuhara (Japanese, from sexual harrassment)
- maglev,
- trengevity,
- environazi, feminazi,
- infomercial, premercial (commercial that precedes something), infotainment,
docutainment, edutainment,
- buscapade,
- sitcom
(and
Britcom [British sitcoms] and now zitcom [teen-themed sitcoms]),
- nibling
(niece/nephew sibling);
- Tamil kiimii from abbreviation of
kii[loo]mii[TTar] `kilometer'.
- Brand names: butterine from
butter + (marger)ine;
- Military/burocratic: 'hazmats' (as in NO HAZMATS
permitted in tunnel) (haz[ardous] mat[erials]);
- medical-scientific prion
.
See this background document or this one
(quinion.com)
for more ideas. Here's one that blends an acronym (W.A.P. or wireless
application protocol ) with the word apathy --> wapathy
`disappointment with W.A.P.' Here's a blend of three words:
turducken which is a blend of tur(key)+duck+chicken,
literally and lexically--turducken is made by stuffing a (boned) chicken into
a duck and then stuffing the duck into a turkey.
