I love portmanteau words.
Everyone knows “laundromat” (launder + automatic), or “camcorder” (camera + recorder), but what about “glocalise” (global + local)? It’s when a product is widely available, but adapted for each local area or market.
It was author Lewis Carroll who used the word “portmanteau” to describe words he’d made up from two other words, because a portmanteau — a case used to carry a monarch’s robes – had two compartments. Carroll used it in his 1871 book “Through the Looking Glass”, when Humpty Dumpty tells Alice that “slithy” means “lithe and slimy” because “it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word”.
I recently came across this gem again, which is possibly the best portmanteu word for modern comms: it describes when YouTube, Twitter and Facebook join together – YouTwitFace. Taking the best portmanteau spirit, I’ve added “Instagram” in there: YouInstantTwitFace… 🙂