Talk:Portmanteau/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Dubious division of examples

The examples given from the English language are divided into "standard" and "non-standard" English words. I would like to know what the rationale is for calling a commonly used word like spork "non-standard" -- as far as I know there is no such thing as "regular English". Maybe the headings for these sections could be changed to be less misleading? Supremeedible (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Presumably "non-standard" is intended to mean "words which still somewhat felt to be neologisms and/or nonce-forms and/or entertainment industry jargon"... AnonMoos (talk) 22:15, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Should this page be deleted??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_dictionary —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.0.193.13 (talk) 18:58, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't look like a dictionary definition to me... AnonMoos (talk) 04:32, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Perhaps the lead needs to transition to the body a bit better, but this is definitely not dicdef. Mystache (talk) 18:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

It is not a definition, but it is an article about a word, something that the linked policy warns against. Per this article, the word portmanteau may refer to a blend, a contraction, or a portmanteau morpheme. On the other hand, I don't think there is any possibility of achieving consensus to merge some or all of those pages, or to delete this one. Cnilep (talk) 02:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not really about the word portmanteau (or not very much), the article seems to be about putting words together in a particular way. It's probably synonymous with blend though, so you could quite reasonably argue it's a duplicate and merge it, or treat it as a subarticle.87.115.94.5 (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Total rewrite required (AGAIN!)

Looks like the semi-literate dickwit who wrote what appears to be ALL the stuff on morphemes, cranberry morphemes and many others, confusing generations of students, and then suddenly disappearing, applied his magic to this dog's breakfast as well. I have given my promise to a Barnstar Commandant to review and edit ALL his drivel, even though this is not my field. (It's ironic and pathetic, at the same time, that someone who is writing on linguistics should be singularly inept in expressing himself.)

To start with, how is it that no one has yet noted that it is incumbent on anyone beginning such an article to properly define the word which is its subject? "Portmanteau" was NOT coined by Lewis; he used the pre-existing word "portmanteau" which comes from the French, and means, very simply, a big bag. In this wonderful way, Lewis explained to a small child, that you could get words that were quite different, and put them into this bag, you see, thus combining them creatively. There, isn't that something a 7 year old could understand? But no mention of this here, except paragraphs down. Instead, we get an enormously well-masticated treatise on how do and don't are contractions, and Spanglish is not. Yeah, we get it, already. (Though, and this is odd, of the close to a hundred portmanteaus in WP's list of them, Spanglish was NOT included, until I put it in a couple of days ago, along with Franglais and Chinglish. Bloody odd.

And take this line:

Examples of "portmanteau" in this sense appeared in Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking-Glass (1871),

The cove what wrote this told us just a few lines above, that the bloody PLURAL of portmanteau is portmanteaus or portmanteaux or portmanteau words. What, for us, but not for him? Or he just doesn't know how to use plurals himself. Which would be closer to the mark. And why is it in quote marks now? I wouldn't write: examples of "verbs" include run and sit, would you? And why "in this sense"? How does that bear on anything? You mean in case we thought it was all about real bags? And the "appeared" should read "first appeared" if that was the case, or otherwise just "appear", as all these works are still in print. I've hardly ever seen so many schoolboy howlers packed so firmly cheek to jowl. It goes downhill from there.

And how come I seem to be the ONLY person picking this stuff up? Shheesh… And that's just the start. I could go on an on...But I promised Commandant Barnstar that I would get on with cleaning the Augean stables, otherwise I don't get invited to the Barnstar clubhouse for a sherry and cigar. Myles325a (talk) 10:10, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

That's wikt:Augean not wikt:Aegean. Sheesh. DCDuring (talk) 16:02, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

OPmyles325a back live. Yep, I make zee liddle boo boo, which I have now corrected. One letter the diff, and yet it means so very much. Thanks. Myles325a (talk) 04:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Just wanted to comment on the Lewis part real quick. From what I've read, he is often credited as having coined portmanteau -- blending words -- or as having popularized it. The source in the article citing him is from the Oxford English Dictionary. And there are news sources that sometimes credit him as well, such as this one. Flyer22 (talk) 19:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Question

Is there a specific term to describe portmanteaus such as "Innovelty", a portmanteu of words with a common component ("innovation" and "novelty" both come from Latin "novus")? If so, could someone add this informationto the article? 83.171.202.92 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC).

Another Hebrew word

רמזור - Ramzor (Traffic light) Yaron Shahrabani (talk) 10:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Information

Accoding to the hyakkajiten, the 'hundred sections dictionary' (http://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%A9%E3%82%AA%E3%82%B1) the word karaoke, カラオケ, is not a portmanteau of karappo, 空っぽ, and ookesutora, オーケストラ, but the abbreviation of kara no ookesutora, 空のオーケストラ, meaning the void (kara) orchestra (ookesutora), 'no' being the 'case particle', kakujyoshi 格助詞 that links the determinant to the determined. To be sure, the character, kanji, for 空空 has to be appraised as a name, 名, thus the justification to the determinant-determined relation. While karappo, 空っぽ, is usually written in hiragana, thus からっぽ, that is without the kanji '空', which can be read as 'kara' but presents various other readings f.i. utsu, utsuo, utsuse, uro etc. etc., a reconstruction of karaoke, カラオケ, from the two hiragana words karappo, からっぽ, and ookesutora, オーケストラ, would probably indicate its vernacular origin. On the one hand these abbreviations originate mostly from the process of omission of the second phonem of each word in a 2 words compound-word, therefore in this case: kara-ppo + ooke-sutora: kara(o)oke. The long vowel 'oo' is reduced in order to maintain the pattern of 2 moras per word (Duanmu, 2007). On the other hand this would represents an example of the westernization cultural phenomena in Japanese consumer society, happened after world-war II in concomitance with the American occupation of the country (1945-52).

http://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%82%AB%E3%83%A9%E3%82%AA%E3%82%B1 Duanmu, San. 2007, “A two-accent model of Japanese word prosody,” Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 28: 29–48. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DanielCaramanna (talk • contribs) 08:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Spanish portmantau morphs

In the chart with different portmanteau morphs, most of the contractions in Spanish shouldn't be called like that. 'Al' and 'del' are ok, but, for example, 'paraguas' (and not 'paragua') is a compound from 'parar' ('stop') and 'aguas' ('water') in a very literal way. I wouldn't consider it a portmanteau word, but it's acceptable.

What's not acceptable is the consideration of 'conmigo' ('with me') and 'contigo' ('with you') portmanteau morphs. These pronouns come from Latin, as many other words in Spanish. The form for the 1st person singular in the Ablative case was 'me'; along with the preposition 'cum' and after many years 'cum me' became 'mecum', which meant exactly the same but was easier to pronounce. As years passed, Spanish people that spoke Latin couldn't see that the preposition 'cum' was there, so they decided to say 'cum mecum'. This, after many years, became 'conmigo' in Spanish, but the process is so complex that I wouldn't even consider the decision of saying that it is a pormanteau word.

I'm a Spanish girl studying English, so please don't be mad at me for the mistakes I make. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.244.23.54 (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Portmanteau

As a noun. The earliest reference I have read of this word is Dickens "The Curiosity Shop" 1841. It is as follows, "with a portmanteau strapped to his back". I would differ that this is just a bag or suitcase. I believe is the first reference to a "backpack". Chapt 45 last page.

A portmanteau (from French porter "to carry" and manteau "a type of coat") This is Miriam Webster. The telling tale here is "coat". One does not carry a coat by it's handle, you wear it. It is not a "carry sack" or "carry bag" A coat fits ON you, therefor it is a wear coat that carries, a "backpack". That is my story and I am stickin to it. Not bad from a guy in Northern Arkansas. LOL — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.216.236.108 (talk) 05:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Jedward

'In 2009, John and Edward Grimes (twins) followed the growing trend for celebrity portmanteau names when they entered the sixth series of The X-Factor (UK) under the name "Jedward."' The twins actually entered the show under the names "John and Edward", as seen in their initial audition clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWwW_DYmxEw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.50.96.88 (talk) 23:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Portmanteau as a "morph"

In the article's intro it is written that "In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph which represents two or more morphemes". In the refs given (specifically ref #5) a "morph" is defined as "the phonetic realization of a morpheme". However, a portmanteu is more than just the phonetic realization of a morpheme; it is a type of morpheme itself and therefore should not be defined as a "morph". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lonwolve (talk • contribs) 04:52, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Cyberpunk & technobabble

These two terms are being called portmanteaus in their respective article. Cyberpunk from cybernetics and punk and technobabble from technology and babble. While I agree it could be argued that they are portmanteaus I find it far more likely that cyberpunk is a derivation from cyber + punk while technobabble is a derivation from the prefix techno + babble. What does everyone else think? 83.179.25.167 (talk) 23:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

KaDeWe

This is an acronym, in which the letters are written as they are pronounced.141.51.48.182 (talk) 15:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Portmanteau was used by President George Washington on 12 January 1797 in a letter to Lt. Colonel Benjamin Walker, Washington letter is in reference to a British circulated rumor after the Battle for Ft. Lee. The rumor was that William Lee, George Washington's manservant and George Washington's personal baggage "Portmanteau" were captured.

George Washington uses the word portmanteau to describe a 'gentleman personal baggage' "it contained only a few stockings and shirts"

George Washington and slavery: a documentary portrayal By Fritz Hirschfeld pg 102 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.49.195.166 (talk) 18:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Reference is incorrect. "The name also combines the word lien (link)"

No this word "Francilien" does not combine the word "lien" (link).

1. "Transilien" = "Transports" + "Franciliens" : true.

2. but about "Francilien", a person living in "Île-de-France" you have to note this : "ilien=Îlien" is for "Islander". "Francilien" = "France" + "Îlien" (Islander) : that explains "Île-de-France" (Island of France > France Islander) ; and absolutly not "France" + "lien" (link). So this point "The name also combines the word lien (link)" should be fixed. Thanks.

Blayotl — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.145.100.34 (talk • contribs) 16:36, November 27, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. It took 8+ years, but it's done, now. The whole article is shot through with WP:OR and probably needs to undergo a lot of pruning. Mathglot (talk) 19:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

stragmatics

How is the article improved by including this example?

Portmanteaux are also commonly utilized in avant-garde scientific and literary theory; the word "stragmatics," for example, is increasingly employed in the context of posthuman factors research to address the strategic pragmatics of pragmatic strategies (i.e., strategies that are intrinsically realized by being arrived at by pragmatic means).

Surely there are many better examples out there for "avant-garde" scientific and literary theory terms. The amount of wording spent defining the term is completely disproportionate to its contribution to the audience's understanding of portmanteaus. I mean, it's the longest explanation in the entire examples section (from a brief glance) while remaining mind-numbingly convoluted. This page is the top google result for "stragmatics" (of only 350, wow!). Is this page really an appropriate place for the editor to squeeze in their favorite pet term? 131.128.90.148 (talk) 19:07, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The page has too many examples, as it is - I have removed several then, after considering your comment, removed stragmatics - it does seem unnecessary and excessive. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Linking portmanteau and MOS

In wiki articles on portmanteau words, do we link portmanteau or not?

Do we change this back, if other editors add/remove it?

Is there a clear statement anywhere in MOS about this?

Thanks! Andy Dingley (talk) 09:05, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I've never found a clear statement, which is probably just as well since it seems too minor and subjective a question for an MOS ruling. Despite the long-running debate as these Talk pages demonstrate) about whether/when to describe other words as portmaneaus and then link to this article, it's not really that important an issue; changes made either way don't really alter articles much, even if they make some of our blood pressures rise. I think we'll just have to live with an inconsistent, and often-changing, usage throughout English wikipedia. (What do they do in the French wikipedia, I wonder?) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC) (an anti-portmanteau-ian, mostly)

not german

"Kissambushed" and "Phalluspistol" are english, and the latter isn´t even a portmanteau. --88.66.61.233 (talk) 02:23, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Croatian?

What about Croatian? if any Croatian is famous for portmanteau use into its extremes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.43.170.61 (talk) 01:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

Certain sections of this article seem to be lacking in references - specifically, in the sections "Meaning," "Standard English," "Non-standard English," and all of the subsections under "Other languages." There are also certain statements in various sections that seem unnecessary/not neutral enough (namely, "Meshing says "I am you and you are me," states one expert." under the section "Name-meshing" and the conclusion that "Tibetan is rich with portmanteaus.", which does not have any references to back up its claim.) Finally, the subsections "Bulgarian" and "Indonesian" could use some editing in regards to grammaticality. (For example, "In Bulgarian language the most common use of portmanteau is as a part of an advertisement campaign." might be better phrased as "In Bulgarian, portmanteaux are most commonly used as parts of advertisement campaigns." Again, this statement may need a reference to back up its claim and justify the subsequent descriptions of specific Bulgarian ad campaigns.) Stephmau (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the meshing bit, I think that it's fine to defer to an expert's opinion. It's not as though we are stating that this expert's opinion is the be-all and end-all. Flyer22 (talk) 03:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Standard English

The "Standard English" section contains many dubious examples. --Zfish118 (talk) 18:13, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Which ones? It may have too many examples, but none seems dubious to me. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:13, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Clean up the graffiti

There is nothing wrong with the portmanteau page existing on Wikipedia, but there is also no reason for the promiscuous proliferation of portmanteau links everywhere else. This word has only literary value outside of Wikipedia. What is the benefit in "explaining" a compound word with another word which has no usage in common English and which would itself be incomprehensible to most readers if not linked back to this page? When I paint a picture and frame it and share it with others, I can call it art. When I stamp it in neon colors over every wall and door and tree, it becomes an unsightly mess, and detracts from the concise introductory description of many Wikipedia articles without adding a shred of value. I propose that we put an end to the vandalism once and for all, while allowing the portmanteau camp to do whatever they wish with this page. If you agree, please say so. If you know the appropriate way to go about doing this on Wikipedia, please advise. neil.steiner (talk) 03:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Go ahead and remove links if you find them inappropriate - as I do. I agree that the word is almost always useless in other articles, conveying nothing to the reader, but this is wikipedia where individual editors acts (mostly) as they wish. There's no way to change all the links in other articles, except by just doing it. Go to the "what links here" tool and get to work!- DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:35, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I have just removed them from four articles - three I changed to "combination" and one I removed as unnecessary. Your turn! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I've seen a couple pages with "portmanteau" in the "see also" section, which seems reasonable. I have left those. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:54, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I just found this discussion by looking through DavidWBrooks' edit history to see if I could find a rationale for his recent edits. Prior to this I had reverted one of his edits as an unexplained delinking which seemed to run contrary to the spirit of WP:WIKIFY. From reading this thread, though, it now seems to me like the rationale for these edits is summed in WP:OVERLINK. Is that accurate? If so, I'm not sure I agree with changing the word in addition to delinking it. Isn't a "portmanteau" a specific kind of "combination"? What is the rationale for broadening/generalizing the sentences using the word? Either way, it would be helpful if editors making these changes would use edit summaries pointing to this discussion for the benefit of other editors who might not otherwise understand. Thanks in advance. -Thibbs (talk) 19:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I should use edit summaries, you're correct. I was being lazy. I apologize.

The argument is not about overlinking, the argument is about putting unnecessary, confusing verbiage in the article. "Portmanteau" is jargon that conveys nothing to the average reader; putting it in most stories interferes with the point of the article, which is to inform about the topic.

If the article concerns grammar or lexicogrpahy or language in some way then its use is appropriate, but sticking a word like "portmanteau" in the middle of an article about a video game is bad writing. Changing it to "combination" or "made by combining" or some general terminology like conveys the meaning without interfering with the reason for the article.

This issue has been debated for many years, as you'll see above. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:50, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the top of this talk page, I see that the very first comment, made before the time/date stamp system was in effect, concerns the pointless ubiquity of the word! Portmanteau-love seems to have been birthed not long after wikipedia itself. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

However, looking at the history of this Talk page I find that there were many older comments as far back as 2002 which have somehow disappeared and which did not concern the word's prevalence, so I'll have to roll back my previous comment. (Man, I should really get back to work ...) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the more I look above the deeper grows the rabbit-hole. Seems like there's no clear consensus on whether the term should be linked or not, but that's probably because this is the talk page for the article on the concept instead of a MoS talkpage. Anyway even if we accept that the term is jargon which a layman might find confusing, I'm not sure I agree that its use should be limited to articles concerning language. In the example I linked above where I had reverted, the article is indeed about video games, but the subsection where you made the change is specifically about the name of the device (in this case a portmanteau of two English words for a Japanese-only product). It seems like it would make sense to use precise language-related terminology when discussing the name even though it's only the topic of the subsection instead of the entire article. The purpose of wiki-linking a term is to explain it to laymen, so reader confusion shouldn't be a major concern. -Thibbs (talk) 23:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

We'll have to disagree. My argument is that article sections about the name of a device or place or company, like the one you mention, exist (with rare exceptions) only to inform us of the words that the name is taken from. The grammatical mechanism of the combination is irrelevant, and confusing people with a WP:Jargon term about that mechanism is bad encyclopedia-ification ... especially since there's often argument about whether a combination is actually a portmanteau or a blend or a something else. Precision is not a good thing if it introduces confusion or uncertainty. Clarity for readers is the goal.

And just to be clear, the argument isn't about linking. If the word is used in an article, it should be linked because nobody knows what it means. The argument concerns whether the word should be used at all. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:26, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion belongs elsewhere. -Thibbs (talk) 17:57, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

"article sections about the name of a device or place or company, like the one you mention, exist (with rare exceptions) only to inform us of the words that the name is taken from" - Those would be some very small sections indeed. My perspective is that if an entire headered section (as opposed to a mere "portion") is devoted to the name of a topic then the name must be worth discussing in greater depth than what you're suggesting. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, to find information in such a section on etymology, definition, who coined the word, and even when it was first used. If a section were nothing more than a sentence (like "Foobarbaz is a portmanteau of 'Foob' and 'Arbaz'.") then I agree that the word "portmanteau" could be changed to "combination" or "mix" or some other common term and then the section should be folded into the main article (e.g. into the lede). I'd draw the line at dumbing down entire sections devoted to the name, though. -Thibbs (talk) 17:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC) Re-reading my last comment over again I'm struck by the fact that this isn't at all related to the article topic. This is MOS talkpage discussion and doesn't belong here. Feel free to remove or collapse it. I'll happily agree to disagree. -Thibbs (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

There is no need to go around removing the word portmanteau or its plural form from Wikipedia articles. Keep WP:Activism in mind. This is the Portmanteau article and it should be linked in other Wikipedia articles where reasonable; otherwise, we end up with an article that is a WP:Orphan. A reader can learn about word blending at the Portmanteau or Blend word article. Flyer22 (talk) 00:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not just removing it - I'm rewriting some articles to improve them. That's what editors do, right? And this won't be an orphan article; there are plenty of places where portmanteau is legitimately discussed or mentioned. Dom Tower of Utrecht, Tamil Nadu and Bogota, New Jersey, to grab three quickies, aren't among them. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:59, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

That you are doing any improving by removing the word portmanteau is your opinion. Why don't you take this to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and see how many agree with you? Or, hey, I could take it there. And/or start a WP:RfC on it? Take it to the WP:Village pump? Flyer22 (talk) 01:19, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Should we discuss this at the MoS or a Village pump? I'd be willing to participate if others were interested as well. It might save time down the road given how this seems to be a recurrent issue. Any interest? -Thibbs (talk) 18:38, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

You know, scratch that. I was just now looking for prior discussions on the topic and found a few (1, 2, 3, 4) before discovering this edit... Anything that has an entry on WP:LAME is probably best to simply avoid. -Thibbs (talk) 00:27, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

A challenge to the portmanteau camp

Kindly explain what benefit you bring to Wikipedia by pushing your word all over the wiki landscape. neil.steiner (talk) 03:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Kindly read WP:Activism. Wikipedia is not the place for you to go on a crusade removing a word because of a WP:IDON'TLIKEIT rationale. Flyer22 (talk) 00:45, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Kindly read WP:Jargon. Wikipedia is not the place to clutter up articles with a word because WP:ILIKEIT rationale. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:01, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

No thanks. I'm already familiar with that guideline, just like the WP:Activism, WP:IDON'TLIKEIT and WP:ILIKEIT WP:Essays. A legitimate word does not become jargon just because you don't like it. And, yes, yes, jargon does not become a legitimate word just because I like it. I never stated that it did. But your mission to almost completely eliminate this word from Wikipedia will not work unless you can get an iron-clad, wide-scale WP:Consensus for it. And being on a crusade to remove it is indeed WP:Activism. Flyer22 (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

The weird prevalence of "portmanteau" in wikipedia has long been recognized as a minor activism of its own, a quirky example of the inherent weaknesses of a group-writing exercise like this (xkcd, as always, is clever about it: [[1]]). This discussion reminds me, however, that I have thrown up my hands several times over the years about this overuse, which certainly isn't worth my time - nor yours, for that matter. neil.steiner's passion made me forget myself! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 01:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I see your point there. Flyer22 (talk) 01:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I wish there really was portmanteau camp, I would stay there all summer. Chillum 01:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I might ask the same question that neil.steiner does. Xkcd and DavidWBrooks are right too. (Another word Wikipedia loves is "eponymous".) And I don't know why this article even exists: it seems a well-intended but mistitled fork of the article Blend word. (As the "Portmanteau" article itself says, "In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph that represents two or more morphemes"; which makes me wonder in what it is that "portmanteau" is defined as a blend.) Is it perhaps that the "Blend word" article is intended for high/middlebrow readers, and the "Portmanteau" article for middle/lowbrows? If so, this is odd: I don't recall encountering an analogous divergence within Wikipedia. -- Hoary (talk) 02:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

A modest proposal

I have an idea how to solve the problem surrounding "portmanteau" on Wikipedia. See Talk:Blend word#Ambiguity?. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:49, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

portamento

Disambiguate near homophone (rhyme) in music. --Wikidity (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Misunderstanding of Lewis Carroll

I think this article's section about the origin of the word misunderstand's the original instance. Carroll was not coining the term. He didn't assert that this type was word was called a portmaneau. He was using the exsting meaning of portmanteau to describe how the word worked. The new word was a metaphorical portmanteau, rather than an actual thing called a portmanteau. -Llewdor (talk) 15:58, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't read it as saying it he coined the term - rather than he used it as a metaphor, which has been used by other people since then. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:32, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Russian in the Soviet Union

I'm wondering if the widespread Soviet habit of naming political and other organisations by such abbreviations as "Sovnarkom" ("Soviet Narodnykh Kommissarov" = "Council of People's Commissars"), "Gosprom" ("Gosudarstvennaya Promyshlennost" = "State Industry"), "Komsomol" ("Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodezhi" = "Communist Youth League") and "Smersh" (= "Smert Shpionam" = "Death to Spies") counts as an example of portmanteaus. Perhaps a separate section on this could be added.213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:04, 24 March 2017 (UTC) Forgot to include what is surely the best-known and most notorious of these abbreviations: "Gulag" ("Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey" = "Chief Directorate of Camps").213.127.210.95 (talk) 14:25, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

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