Word formation blending words

Learn More With These Definitions and Examples

Updated on February 05, 2020

A word blend is formed by combining two separate words with different meanings to form a new one. These words are often created to describe a new invention or phenomenon that combines the definitions or traits of two existing things. 

Word Blends and Their Parts

Word blends are also known as portmanteau (pronunciation port-MAN-toe), a French word meaning «trunk» or «suitcase.» Author Lewis Carroll is credited with coining this term in «Through the Looking-Glass,» published in 1871. In that book, Humpty Dumpty tells Alice about making up new words from parts of existing ones:

«You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.»

There are different ways of creating word blends. One way is to combine portions of two other words to make a new one. These word fragments are called morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language. The word «camcorder,» for example,» combines parts of «camera» and «recorder.» Word blends can also be created by joining a full word with a portion of another word (called a splinter). For example, the word «motorcade» combines «motor» plus a portion of «cavalcade.»

Word blends can also be formed by overlapping or combining phonemes, which are parts of two words that sound alike. One example of an overlapping word blend is «Spanglish,» which is an informal mix of spoken English and Spanish. Blends can also be formed through the omission of phonemes. Geographers sometimes refer to «Eurasia,» the landmass that combines Europe and Asia. This blend is formed by taking the first syllable of «Europe» and adding it to the word «Asia.»

The Blend Trend

English is a dynamic language that is constantly evolving. Many of the words in the English language are derived from ancient Latin and Greek or from other European languages such as German or French. But starting in the 20th century, blended words began to emerge to describe new technologies or cultural phenomena. For instance, as dining out became more popular, many restaurants began serving a new weekend meal in the late morning. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, so someone decided to make a new word that described a meal that was a little bit of both. Thus, «brunch» was born.

As new inventions changed the way people lived and worked, the practice of combining parts of words to make new ones became popular. In the 1920s, as traveling by car became more common, a new kind of hotel that catered to drivers emerged. These «motor hotels» quickly proliferated and became known as «motels.» In 1994, when a rail tunnel beneath the English Channel opened, connecting France and Great Britain, it quickly became known as the «Chunnel,» a word blend of «Channel» and «tunnel.»

New word blends are being created all the time as cultural and technological trends emerge. In 2018, Merriam-Webster added the word «mansplaining» to their dictionary. This blended word, which combines «man» and «explaining,» was coined to describe the habit that some men have of explaining things in a condescending manner.  

Examples

Here are some examples of word blends and their roots:

Blended word	Root word 1	Root word 2
agitprop	agitation	propaganda
bash	bat	mash
biopic	biography	picture
Breathalyzer	breath	analyzer
clash	clap	crash
docudrama	documentary	drama
electrocute	electricity	execute
emoticon	emotion	icon
fanzine	fan	magazine
frenemy	friend	enemy
Globish	global	English
infotainment	information	entertainment
moped	motor	pedal
pulsar	pulse	quasar
sitcom	situation	comedy
sportscast	sports	broadcast
staycation	stay	vacation
telegenic	television	photogenic
workaholic	work	alcoholic

Blendings
(blends,
fusions or
portmanteau
words) may
be defined as formation that combine two words and include the
letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element:

bio (logical) +
(electro)nic →
bionic

wash +
(caf)eteria →
washeteria

sk(ateboard) +
(s)urfing →
skurflng

slim+gymnastics →
slimnastics;

miserable+flimsy →
mimsy;

gallop+triumph →
galumph;

new+utopia →
neutopia

UA. банківський
+ автомат
→ банкомат

The process of formation is
also called telescoping.
The analysis into immediate constituents is
helpful in
so far as it permits the definition of a blend as a word with the
first constituent represented by a stem whose final part may be
missing, and the second constituent by a stem of which the initial
part is missing. The second constituent when used in a series of
similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix -on
is, for
instance, well under way in such terms as nylon,
rayon, formed
from the final element of cotton.

Depending
upon the prototype phrases with which they can be correlated two
types of blends can be distinguished. One may be termed additive,
the second restrictive.
Both involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as
well. Yet the semantic relations which are at work are different.

The
additive type,
is transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete
stems combined by the conjunction and:

smoke
and
fog
→ smog − a
mixture of smoke and fog.

The elements may be
synonymous, belong to the same semantic field or at least be members
of the same lexico-grammatical class of words:

French+English
→ Frenglish;

smoke+haze
→ smaze;

Panjab+Afghania+Kashmir+Singh+Baluchistan
→ Pakistan;

breakfast
and
lunch
→ brunch

transmitter
and
receiver
→ transceiver

The
restrictive type
is transformable into an attributive phrase where the
first element serves as modifier of the second:

cine(matographic
pano) rama
→ cinerama.

medical
care → medicare

positive
electron → positron

television
broadcast → telecast

An
interesting variation of the same type is presented by cases of
superposition,
formed by pairs of words having similar clusters of sounds which seem
to provoke blending:

motorists’
hotel →motel;

sham
bamboo (imitation
bamboo) →
shamboo;

slang
+language
→ slanguage;

spiced ham → spam.

Blends,
although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise,
especially in terminology and also in trade advertisements:
Reaganomics»
Irangate, blackspiloitation, workaholic, foodoholic, scanorama etc..

7.2. Back-formation.

Back-formation
(also
called reversion)
is a term borrowed from
diachronic linguistics. It denotes the derivation of new words by
subtracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through
misinterpretation of their structure.

The earliest examples of
this type of word-building are the verb to
beg that
was made from the French borrowing beggar,
to burgle from
burglar, to
cobble from
cobbler. In
all these cases the verb was made from the noun by subtracting what
was mistakenly associated with the English suffix -er.
The
pattern of the type to
work —
worker was
firmly established in the subconscious of English-speaking people at
the time when these formations appeared, and it was taken for granted
that any noun denoting profession or occupation is certain to have a
corresponding verb of the same root. So, in the case of the verbs to
beg, to burgle, to cobble the
process was reversed: instead of a noun made from a verb by
affixation (as in
painter from
to paint),
a verb was
produced from a noun by subtraction. That is why this type of
word-building received the name of back-formation
or
reversion.

Later examples of
back-formation are to butle
from
butler, to
baby-sit from
baby-sitter,
to force-land from
forced
landing, to blood-transfuse from
blood-transfuing.

Back formation is mostly
active in compound verbs, and is combined with word-composition. The
basis of this type of word-building are compound words and
word-combinations having verbal nouns, gerunds, participles or other
derivative nouns as their second component (rush-development,
finger-printing, well-wisher).
These compounds and word-combinations are wrongly considered to be
formed from compound verbs which are nonexistent in reality. This
gives a rise to such verbs as; to
rush-develop, to finger-print, to well-wish.

Structural
changes taking place in back-formation became possible because of
semantic changes that preceded them. The change of meaning resulted
in demotivation, and this paved the way for phonic changes, i.e.
assimilation, loss of sound and the like, which in their turn led to
morphemic alternations that became meaningful. Semantic changes often
influence the morphological structure by modifying the relations
between stems and derivational affixes. Structural changes, in their
turn, depend on the combined effect of demotivation and analogy
conditioned by a higher frequency of occurrence of the pattern that
serves as model. Provided all other conditions are equal, words
following less frequent structural patterns are readily subjected to
changes on the analogy of more frequent patterns.

The
very high frequency of the pattern verb
stem+-er
(or
its equivalents) is a matter of common knowledge.

Back-formation
may be also based on the analogy of inflectional forms as testified
by the singular nouns pea
and
cherry.
Pea (the
plural of which is peas
and
also pease)
is
from ME pese<OE
pise, peose<Lat pisa, pl.
of pesum.
The
ending -s
being
the most frequent mark of the plural in English, English speakers
thought that sweet
peas(e) was
a plural and turned the combination peas(e)
soup into
pea
soup. Cherry is
from OFr cerise,
and
the -se
was
dropped for exactly the same reason.

The
most productive type of back-formation in
present-day English is
derivation of
verbs
from
compounds that have either -er
or
-ing
as
their last element:

thought-reading
n
→ thought-reader
n
→ thought-read
v;

air-conditioning
n
→ air-conditioner
n
→
air-condition
v;

turbo-supercharger
n.
→
turbo-supercharge
v

Other
examples of back-formations from compounds
are the verbs baby-sit,
beachcomb, house-break, house-clean, house-keep,
red-bait, tape-record etc.

The
semantic relationship between the prototype and the derivative is
regular. Baby-sit,
for
example, means to act or become employed as a baby-sitter, that is to
take care of children for short periods of time while the parents are
away from home.

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Blending:

In English, Blending is a word-formation process in which
parts of two or more words combine to create a new word. Words that are
formed when two or more words are combined to form new words have some of
the properties of each of the original words. Therefore, combining two or
more words creates a new word that refers to something that has some
properties of the original words.

We already have many blend words in the English language, and even more
blend words are being created every day. English being a dynamic language
that is constantly evolving, many more new blend words are being added.

Following is a list of 15+ popular blend words:

1. brunch = breakfast + lunch

2. biopic = biography + picture

3. glimmer = gleam + shimmer

4. camcorder = camera + recorder

5. motel = motor + hotel

6. sitcom = situation + comedy

7. clash = clap + crash

8. smash = smack + mash

9. workaholic = work + alcoholic

10. moped = motor + pedal

11. pulsar = pulse + quasar

12. globish = global + English

13. faction = fact + fiction

14. docudrama = documentary + drama

15. sportscast = sports + broadcast

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Table of Contents

1.Introduction

2. Classification of Blends
2.1 Modified Blends
2.2 Meaningful Blends

3. Categories of Blends and their source words

4. Structure of Blending
4.1 First Rule for Blending – Formation
4.2 Second Rule for Blending – Formation
4.3 Third Rule for Blending – Formation

5. Conclusion

Bibliography

1. Introduction

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll^[1]

Lewis Carroll invented in his book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland two new words which are nowadays often seen in literature and are well known today. Slithy derivates from the words lithe and slimy and means something like a gentle or smooth slime. On the other hand mimsy, from flimsy and miserable, indicates something fragile and wretched. But these words are not the first word – formation processes visible in the literature of the last centuries. For example Robert Greene used in 1592 in his book The Defence of Conny Catching the word foolosophy which is a blending from foolish and philosophy. In the seventeenth century Samuel Purchas mentioned the word knavigation, a knavish navigation (Pilgrimage, 1613).^[2]

This visible phenomenon of creating new words is a word – formation process called blending. Blending belongs to a “class of complex words”^[3] which links two or more words together. They are formed by deleting parts from one or both of the original words and these are composed to a new word which is called blend. Blending is a common and especially a creative word – formation process nowadays.

A classic definition given by Laurie Bauer is: “A blend may be defined as a new lexeme formed from parts of two (or possibly more) other words in such a way that there is no transparent analysis into morphs.”^[4]

As a part of this term paper I will show how the blends are classified into modified and meaningful blends and how they are categorized, including the categorization of their source words.

I am going to answer the question how blends are structured and what kind of rules there are for their formation. The term paper will answer all these questions by analyzing blends and their source words and this will show that blending is a word – formation process.

2. Classification of Blends

2.1 Modified Blends

Modified blends are blends in which “the first element modifies the second element”^[5].

(1.) breath + analyzer = breathalyzer
(2.) motor + hotel = motel
(3.) motor + camp = mocamp
(4.) science + fiction = sci-fi ^[6]
(5.) binary + digit = bit ^[7]
(6.) guess + estimate = guesstimate
(7.) fan + magazine = fanzine ^[8]
(8.) helicopter + airport = heliport ^[9]
(9.) internal + communication = intercom ^[10]
(10.) slang + language = slanguage
(11.) aqua + aerobics = aquarobics ^[11]
(12.) entrepreneur + porn = entreporneur ^[12]

In (1.) it is visible that a breathalyzer is a special kind of analyzer which analyzes the breath. In (3.) a mocamp is a motor camp as well as in (2.) a motel is a motor hotel.

2.2 Meaningful Blends

Meaningful blends “share properties of the referents of both elements”^[13].

(13.) boat + hotel = boatel
(14.) breakfast + lunch = brunch
(15.) modulator + demodulator = modem
(16.) smoke + fog = smog
(17.) Spanish + English = Spanglish
(18.) ability + skill = askillity ^[14]
(19.) departure + start = destarture ^[15]
(20.) enforcement + farce = enfarcement ^[16]
(21.) alcohol + holiday = alcoholiday ^[17]
(22.) lithe + slimy = slithy ^[18]
(23.) American + Indian = Amerind ^[19]
(24.) car + barbecue = carbecue ^[20]

A boatel is a boat and a hotel at the same time visible in (13.) as well as slithy means lithe and slimy (22.).A smog is a fog formed by smoke (16.).

3. Categories of Blends and their source words

Mostly both source words belong to one semantic category like the formed blend.

(4.) science + fiction = sci – fi

science = noun fiction = noun sci – fi = noun

(13.) boat + hotel = boatel

boat = noun hotel = noun boatel = noun

(14.) breakfast + lunch = brunch

breakfast = noun lunch = noun brunch = noun

(17.) Spanish + English = Spanglish

Spanish = noun English = noun Spanglish = noun

(24.) car + barbecue = carbecue

car = noun barbecue = noun carbecue = noun

In the given examples the original words and the resulting blends belong all to the category of nouns. But of course, there are examples which deviate from the rule:

(5.) binary + digit = bit

binary = adjective digit = noun bit = noun

(6.) guess + estimate = guesstimate

guess = adjective, noun, verb estimate = noun guesstimate = verb, noun

In (5.) the first source word binary is an adjective, the second source word digit is a noun and the resulting blend bit is a noun. In (6.) the first source guess can be defined as an adjective, a noun or a verb. The second source word estimate is a noun as well as the blending guesstimate which can be a verb, too.

4. Structure of Blending

4.1 First Rule for Blending – Formation

Plag defines a rule for Blending – Formation by combining “the first part of the first element [ . . . ] with the second part of the second element”.^[21] This rule can be shown in the following equation:

[…]

---

^[1] http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19102-twas-brillig-and-the-slithy-toves-did-gyre-and-gimble

^[2] Adams, Valerie. An Introduction to Modern English Word – Formation. London: Longman: 1973. 149.

^[3] Plag, Ingo. Word-Formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 121.

^[4] Bauer, Laurie. English Word – Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. 234.

^[5] Plag 2003: 122.

^[6] Plag 2003: 122.

^[7] Adams 1973. 146.

^[8] Carter, Ronald and Michael McCarthy. Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 483.

^[9] Carter 2006: 483

^[10] http://www.brighthubeducation.com/esl-lesson-plans/59679-forming-new-words-compounds-clipping-and-blends/

^[11] http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/blend.htm

^[12] Schmid, Hans – Jörg. English Morphology and Word – Formation: An Introduction. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2011. 219.

^[13] Plag 2003: 122.

^[14] Welte, Werner. Englische Morphologie und Wortbildung. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1988. 292 – 293.

^[15] Welte 1988: 292.

^[16] Welte 1988: 292.

^[17] Welte 1988: 292.

^[18] Bauer 1983: 234.

^[19] Adams 1973: 155.

^[20] Bauer 1983: 236.

^[21] Plag 2003: 123.