Juneteenth

Filed under: Portmanteaus
4 Comments

I think it’s worth mentioning that today is Juneteenth, probably the only holiday with a portmanteau name to receive semi-official national status. I mean, if there are others, I’d be curious to know about them.

Thanks,
-Ed.

4 Responses to “Juneteenth”

  1. Fred Bush

    I would argue that Halloween definitely counts, and Passover and Thanksgiving seem like portmanteaux as well.

    reply

    • -Ed.

      Hm… I would not have counted any of those as portmanteau words. For me, there has to be some truncation—Passover is no more a portmanteau than polecat or cheeseburger. On the other hand, both polecat and cheeseburger are on Wikipedia’s list of portmanteau words, so.

      Lewis Carroll’s original portmanteau words were slithy and mimsy, which have substantial truncation; evidently his canonical example was frumious. However, language changes and we can’t let him define the word forever; if people really consider polecat a portmanteau, then Hallowe’en is as well. I’m curious to know what other readers think.

      Thanks,
      -E.

      reply

      • Frederic Bush

        I guess I didn’t realize the components had to be shortened and not merely jammed together to form a new word.

        There are occasional Chrismukkah sightings but it’s hardly common.

        reply

        • -Ed.

          Chrismukkah is absolutely a portmanteau word, as was Thanksgivukkah back in 2013, but that won’t happen again soon.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgivukkah

          I really want to know, now, if people are using portmanteau to describe compound words such as cheeseburger. I also don’t know if I consider the world cameleopard a portmanteau word, and that’s going to bug me until I decide.

          Thanks,
          -E.

          reply

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