In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau[a]—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.[2][3][4] English examples include smog, coined by blending smoke and fog,[3][5] as well as motel, from motor (motorist) and hotel.[6]
A blend is similar to a contraction. On the one hand, mainstream blends tend to be formed at a particular historical moment followed by a rapid rise in popularity. Contractions, on the other hand, are formed by the gradual drifting together of words over time due to them commonly appearing together in sequence, such as do not naturally becoming don't (phonologically, /duː nɒt/ becoming /doʊnt/). A blend also differs from a compound, which fully preserves the stems of the original words. The British lecturer Valerie Adams's 1973 Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation explains that "In words such as motel..., hotel is represented by various shorter substitutes – ‑otel... – which I shall call splinters. Words containing splinters I shall call blends".[7][n 1] Thus, at least one of the parts of a blend, strictly speaking, is not a complete morpheme, but instead a mere splinter or leftover word fragment. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish, as it includes both words in full. However, if it were called a "stish" or a "starsh", it would be a blend. Furthermore, when blends are formed by shortening established compounds or phrases, they can be considered clipped compounds, such as romcom for romantic comedy.[8]
- ^ "Portmanteau". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 18 March 2024.
- ^ Garner's Modern American Usage, p. 644.
- ^ a b "Portmanteau". Merriam-Webster Offline Dictionary. Retrieved 21 June 2008.
- ^ "Portmanteau". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). 2000. Archived from the original on 26 November 2007. Retrieved 21 June 2008.
- ^ "portmanteau word". Webster's New World College Dictionary. Cleveland: Wiley. 2010. ISBN 978-0-7645-7125-1.
- ^ "Portmanteau word". Encyclopædia Britannica.
- ^ Valerie Adams, An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation, Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1973; ISBN 0-582-55042-4, p. 142.
- ^ Fandrych, Ingrid (10 November 2008). "Submorphemic elements in the formation of acronyms, blends and clippings". Lexis (2). doi:10.4000/lexis.713.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).