By Joseph W. Smith III

Most of us know that words like brunch and smog were coined by combining parts from two other terms — in this case, breakfast + lunch, and of course smoke + fog.

This kind of coinage is called a blend — or sometimes, a portmanteau.

There are literally hundreds of these in English, including many that are comical, quirky or surprising — for example: motel, vitamin, cremains, chortle, zedonk and turducken.

Indeed, the sprawling list of blends is so much fun — and so fascinating — that after much thought, I finally settled on that as our topic for this 50th installment of Webb’s Weird Words. But we may have to run to 52 or 53 before we can get through them all!

Though I generally plan to note the source-words, many are sufficiently clear without explanation: bromance, chillax (yes, this is now in the dictionary!), emoticon, frenemy, mockumentary, moped, sexting (though some of us would prefer this was not a thing!), simulcast, sitcom, spork, staycation, telethon and workaholic.

Like the last two here, many blends involve clipping the suffix off a well-known word (marathon, alcoholic) and then adding it to various other terms; in fact, both (a)holic and (a)thon have given us countless blend-words.

While I don’t plan to cover those here, I will note one other common clipped suffix: -gate, from the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. This has given us dozens of blends, including Debategate, Koreagate, Nannygate, Contragate (aka Irangate) and three different Strippergates.

According to Wikipedia, the use of -gate as a suffix for scandals was popularized by New York Times columnist William Safire (1929-2009). And while we’re giving credit, no discussion of blends would be complete without a shout-out to Lewis Carroll, who coined several for “Jabberwocky” — a nonsense poem in his 1871 fantasy Through the Looking-Glass (sequel to Alice in Wonderland).

In addition to chortle, which combines chuckle and snort, “Jabberwocky” also includes a variety of non-blended words that Carroll coined (jubjub, tulgey, brillig, manxome) — plus some blends that never really entered official English use. My favorite of these is the blade-swishing sound snicker-snack — which may be related to the classic weird-word snickersnee, a type of knife often used as a weapon.

The poem also gives us frabjous and galumphing — but with no reference as to what they combine (fabulous and joyous? … gallop and triumph?). Humpty Dumpty does explain Carroll’s mimsy — as a mix of miserable and flimsy; and as for slithy (which likewise has yet to achieve common use): That, says Humpty, means “lithe and slimy”; and he adds, “‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau, there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

And in this way, Carroll gave us the longer term for a blend: Once quite common in England, a portmanteau is a single carrying-case that unfolds into two separate compartments. (Its original plural, by the way, is portmanteaux.)

In addition to Carroll-coinages, my massive list of blends has categories for surprise, science, sports, food, animals, place-names, people-names, politics and trademarks. Most of those will have to wait till later, but let’s start with a few that are often not even recognized as blends:

Prissy, for example, mixes prim and sissy, while twirl is probably a combination of twist and whirl. (While we’re here, let’s put twerk — likely a blend twist and jerk — into the same “wish-it-away” category as sexting. Please.)

Electrocute combines electricity and execute; as such, it always implies death and should not be used for simply getting shocked. (In other words: I got electrocuted! is something no one ever should — or could! — actually say.)

Motel is a mix of motor and hotel, and is to be distinguished from the latter in that it is found not in cities but along roads and highways — often the sort of lodging where travelers can park right outside their rooms.

My list of blends for near-future columns is, you might say, ginormous. So just to bait the hook, here are a few weird animal blends for your consideration:

Zedonk, lorikeet, beefalo, puggle, chorkie, tiglon, cockapoo and of course, labradoodle.

See you here next week!