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Portmanteau

A portmanteau word is a neologism formed by the merger of two words exist in the language so that these words at least there appears truncated or unrecognizable . It may be a haplologie : one syllable is both the end of a word and the beginning of another, and the process is then pieced together without repeating the common part, at other times one of the words is seen amu.

The portmanteau word differs from the compound word and the word derived from the truncation (shortening of words by removing at least one syllable) and the amalgam of elements from the original words, and the fact that they are not, therefore, immediately identifiable.

The purpose of the portmanteau is to make a pun , or enrich the language by "fighting against dictationnaires" (Bruno San Marco). It is a phenomenon similar to the spelling fanciful.

Summary

/ / About the name

The term "portmanteau word" is the translation of the English " portmanteau word ". The word " portmanteau ", itself derived from the French" portmanteau "once referred to a large suitcase with two compartments . That's why Lewis Carroll in his famous novel On the other side of the mirror , used the image of the portmanteau to show the interest of telescoped words: just one word to say two things at time.

In Chapter 6, Humpty Dumpty (Humpty Dumpty's egg) explains to Alice the meaning of the word "slithy" ("slithy") that she read at the beginning of the poem Jabberwocky :

"Well," SLITHY "means" lithe and slimy. " "Lithe" Is the Same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau-there are Two Meanings packed up Into one word . "
"Well," slithy "means" soft, active, smooth. "You see, it's like a bag: there are two meanings packed into one word . "

Examples

Are permanently entered the language of portmanteau words such as:

Like any neologism, portmanteau words can provide an alternative to lexical borrowing , particularly anglicisms :

  • Chat of keyboard and chat (creation Quebec to translate the specific meaning has taken the word in computer chat , sometimes Frenchified in gab)
  • Email , mail and electronic (creation Quebec , officially recognized in France , to replace the borrowed e-mail).
  • Spam , trash and mail (Qubec creation, formalization of the proposal was rejected by the French Academy)

The portmanteau words are not all recent creations:

  • Dcimeur: critical strain and ironic, by Voltaire, the word tithe , implying thereby that the tithe was so important for the poor it decimated by famine
  • Midouze : streams of Landes formed by the junction of Mido (sometimes spelled Midour) and the Twelve
  • in Portugal , the town of Alcobaa and the small river Alcobaa (Alcobaa Rio ", the name of the river to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean) both derive their name from the confluence of two rivers, the Alcoa (Rio Alcoa ") and Baa (Rio Baa)
  • The name of Budapest , the capital of Hungary , comes from the concatenation of the names of two neighboring towns, Buda and Pest.
  • The Tanzania , is the name given to the merger in 1964 of Tanganyika and the archipelago of Zanzibar.

In linguistics , the term can be used as a synonym of pleasant contracted form ( form only after two lexemes can no longer recognize: the the to + of + the the French, in + dem im German , etc..). Similarly, a morpheme is a portmanteau morpheme which carries multiple meanings: for example, the morpheme-s is the English meanings: + + present indicative third person singular +.

This form of neologism created by contraction of expressions is not unique to the French and exists in many languages.

In literature

The creation of portmanteau words allows an unlimited number of combinations, which can not fail to attract writers and lovers of language games:

  • trouser snake + pen (instead of
  • horse + bag che val ise

Lewis Carroll paved the way for poets and poetry in France as well as borrow Raymond Roussel and Antonin Artaud as Michel Leiris (with "a guest + host = has a ghost), and Oulipians including, of course , Marcel Duchamp and Raymond Queneau. The latter, in the blue flowers and tell Lalix fact: "You are tournipilant at the end! . Boris Vian even invented the "pianocktail" of the foam of day , object dream that unites two sensual pleasures, the taste and hearing , through the intoxication of alcohol and that of jazz.

The game can become definitional:

  • adolchiant: young person at the wrong character
  • the deer-butt: deer rather coward (one of the animals love to Paul Fournel )
  • chrisson: we like being whose piquant charm
  • chirurchien: one who hunts lapindicite
  • "Diplotame" which has been inside the flat at the UN
  • lphapotame: Rivers pachyderm (elephant hippo +)
  • escrotale: Vendor toothy
  • homarylinmonroe: crustacean Some Like It Hot (one of possums famous of Herv Le Tellier )
  • merdaille: a medal with a low value makes it an absolutely any subject, even contemptible
  • merdiateur: Media man doing anything
  • milichien: police dog
  • poustache: mustache grown
  • primature: monkey born preterm
  • testicubes: testicles square
  • Brugnoli: burning cars

The peculiarity of literary authors is to create their portmanteau words:


Some use it in a playful perspective:

In his novel 1984 , George Orwell developed the Newspeak (itself a portmanteau word), whose aim was, through the simplification of lexical and syntactic language, to enslave the mind itself. Examples of portmanteau words in Newspeak:

  • Miniver: Ministry of Truth.
  • Crimesex: sexual activity carried on without purpose of reproduction.
Main article: Newspeak.

In Marketing

This literary device, like many others, is often used in marketing, including product name or trademarks. This is to discuss two ideas in the minds of consumers, and improve the image produced by this combination of images, for example Craquotte (Craquante + rusk) or Pom'pote (+ apple compote).

In the imaginary world

In video games, comics, books and other works fanstastiques is passing through a fantastic world of imagination, the word bags are regularly used in the nomenclature of the bestiary and some objects.

The most striking example is that of Pokmon (itself a portmanteau word derived from Pocket Monster and for pocket monster), where most of the bestiary is named so, more or less recognizable, bound physically and / or character:

Extensions


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