I'm unaware of the proper name for this, and was wondering if another wordy out there happened to know it.
A colleague and I were in stitches at a company meeting the other day because our esteemed president repeatedly employed the novel adjective, "stellular." Of course, we understood that this was some bizarre love child of "stellar" and "cellular," but why one would throw these two together (outside of a telecommunications business context where such a non-word might be considered oh-so-clever) escaped us totally. What is it called when we glom two words together like this? It's not really a malapropism, because that requires we use a word that actually exists. Solecism? Simple neologism? Anyone know?
More interestingly, is it just my biases that lead me to believe that 'Business English' is incredibly rife with this phenomenon? Anyone care to speculate as to why?
The word whiner(?) asks for the correct name for collapsed words.
Like smog and chortle?
That would be portmanteau words. You could do a Search on portmanteau right here in AWADtalk and find something. We discussed this in your absence.
BTW, Welcome back.
a portmantau word -- a portmantau was i think-- some sort of luggage-- that combined two different styles of into one-- and so two words run together to make a new word is a portmantau word-- M-W 10th uses smog as an example -- a blending of smoke and fog.
Alice in Wonderland is full of them-- and new ones pop up all the time -- Brunch comes to mind.
I agree it's a portmanteau. What I keep asking myself is what two words portmanteau comes from, te-he.
In fact, the name 'portmanteau' comes from the master of them himself, the author of Through the Looking Glass and Alice in W., Lewis Carroll; something about a leather suitcase having two compartments I believe.
Anyway here are a few more:
twirl = twist & swirl
motel = motor hotel
.....
> 'Business English' is incredibly rife with this phenomenon? Anyone care to speculate as to why?
Business English advocates seem to love experimenting with language. There was a article in the NY Times which someone here URLed me to, where fulminations about their (mis)use of 'synergy' and other words are discussed by Mr. Safire. And that is probably one of their key concepts behind portmanteau wording, to create 'synergy', to use more affective and emotive language.
Mr Squiggle.
kriegführend jugend keeps asking himself: what two words portmanteau comes from?
From the AHD:
French portemanteau, porte- from porter, to carry, from Old French, + manteau, cloak, from Old French mantel, from Latin mantellum.
So we see that portmanteau is, itself, not quite a portmanteau word. Perhaps our senior Pooh-Bah, tsuwm, can tell us if there is a word to describe a word that does not quite describe itself.
> tell us if there is a word to describe a word that does not quite describe itself
Or the inverse there of would suffice
>> tell us if there is a word to describe a word that does not quite describe itself
>Or the inverse there of would suffice
this I can do: there is no word to describe a word that does not quite describe itself.
tsuwm tells us there is no word to describe a word that does not quite describe itself.
Is there one for a word that does describe itself?
Is there one for a word that does describe itself?
Autological. Examples: 'short', 'English', 'polysyllabic', 'autological'.
The opposite is heterological, examples being 'long', 'monosyllabic', 'German'.
NicholasW (pr)offers autological as a word that describes a word that describes itself suggesting to me that quasiautological would describe a word that almost describes itself.
...and another word for autological is homological.
I rather think that you're all being rather kind to Slovovoi's boss, in that you have assumed that he actually
meant to say "stellular". I may be cynical - nay, I
am cynical - but I'd say that the word falls into the same class of malapropism that "nucular" does. What the mite was trying to say, I think, was "stellar".
Capital Kiwi>>>>
I rather think that you're all being rather kind to Slovovoi's boss, in that you have assumed that he actually meant to say "stellular". I may be cynical - nay, I am cynical - but I'd say that the word falls into the same class of malapropism that "nucular" does. What the mite was trying to say, I think, was "stellar".
There is a great possibility of that being the case. The many mis-pronouncements of the present resident of the White House should be cited as examples.
chronist
wordcrazy notes: The many mis-pronouncements of the present resident of the White House should be cited as examples.
Now now, don't misunderestimate him.
Agreed... We (my colleague and I) were guessing that she had a note in her calendar to call about new cellular service, or something, and it was interfering with her ability to speak clearly. "Stellar," I'm sure, was her intent.
Is there one for a word that does describe itself?
Autological. Examples: 'short', 'English', 'polysyllabic', 'autological'.
The opposite is heterological, examples being 'long', 'monosyllabic', 'German'.
A friend suggested the term 'autophenonymous', which led me to muse as follows:
The Mystery of “Non-autophenonymous”.
Assume there is a class of words, which we shall call autophenonymous words. To be a member of the class, for any word (“*”), the following statement shall be true:
‘”*” is a * word’.
Examples of autophenonymous words are “polysyllabic”, “unambiguous” and “English”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some years but not in others. Examples are “hot”, “cool”, and “fashionable”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some senses but not in others. “Philosophical” is autophenonymous when used in the phrase “Goedel’s theorem poses an important philosophical problem”, but is not autophenonymous when used in the phrase “He was philosophical about his inability to disprove Goedel’s theorem”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some contexts but not others. In the (con)text I am now constructing the following words are autophenonymous: “typed”, “unspoken”, "red".
Let us call the class of all words which are not autophenonymous, non-autophenonymous words. Some people would object to this because it combines Greek and Latin prefixes in one word. Never mind.
To be a member of the class of non-autophenonymous words, for any word (“*”), the following statement shall be false:
‘”*” is a * word’.
The fact that some words, depending on when, how or where they are used may sometimes be autophenonymous and sometimes non-autophenonymous does not challenge the proposition that every word can be classed as either autophenonymous or non-autophenonymous. It merely requires us to be rather specific about the word we are classifying.
However, the word “non-autophenonymous” is (perhaps uniquely) different. It is neither autophenonymous nor non-autophenonymous.
This can be demonstrated as follows.
Let us assume “non-autophenonymous” is autophenonymous.
If so, applying the formula ‘”*” is a * word’, it must be true to state:
‘”non-autophenonymous” is a non-autophenonymous word’.
A corollary of this statement is that ”non-autophenonymous” is not an autophenonymous word. Our initial assumption, that ”non-autophenonymous” is autophenonymous, must therefore be false.
Now let us assume that “non-autophenonymous” is non-autophenonymous. If so, then the following statement must be true:
‘“non-autophenonymous” is a non-autophenonymous word.’
However, applying the formula for non-autophenonymous words, we know that this statement must be false. Therefore, our assumption that “non-autophenonymous” is non-autophenonymous, can not be true either.
In other words “non-autophenonymous” is neither autophenonymous nor non-autophenonymous, no matter when, how or where it is used. It is, in a word, a mystery.
This mystery is an application of Goedel’s theorem, which states, more or less, that no number, linguistic or logical system is so complete that it can solve all the mysteries it can conjure up. To put it in a more positive way, any number, linguistic or logical system worth its salt is capable of generating genuine mysteries (in the sense that they’re insoluble within the system). Goedel not only formulated this proposition, but he actually proved it, and Hofstatder takes the unititiated through the proof in his book ‘Goedel, Escher, Bach – An Eternal Golden Braid’.
It’s a provocative thesis with profound theological implications: to me Goedel’s theorem suggests that not only does human consciousness formulate Big Questions which it can not ever answer, but that divine consciousness (or whatever), however easily it may be able to unravel the mysteries we humans dimly perceive, will formulate even Bigger Questions which it can’t answer either.
>Hofstatder takes the unititiated through the proof in his book ‘Goedel, Escher, Bach – An Eternal Golden Braid’.
nice of you to credit Hofstatder, but why not stick with his words: "...we can use two terms invented specially for this paradox: autological (= "self-descriptive"), and heterological (= "non-self-descriptive"). The question then becomes: "Is heterological heterological?" Try it!"
nice try...
In reply to:
nice of you to credit Hofstatder, but why not stick with his words: "...we can use two terms invented specially for this paradox: autological (= "self-descriptive"), and heterological (= "non-self-descriptive"). The question then becomes: "Is heterological heterological?" Try it!"
I couldn't stick with Hofstatder because after avidly reading GEB when it came out all those years ago (we should be able to date it by reference to the then extraordinary claim by the author that his was the first book ever to have been written and laid out on a personal computer) I, in a moment of foolishness, lent my copy to a person I imagined at the time to be a friend. You can imagine the rest... if you're out there - you know who you are - BRING BACH MY GOEDEL!!! 
So I had to reconstruct the argument from memory. Tsuwm's right. Hofstatder's heterological's neater than Rusty's non-autophenonymous. But hey.
Rusty, I LOVED your circumlocuitous mind-maze squirmle!
Side-splitting, infallissailable logic, my friend. Kudos.
Just let me know who the excuse-for-a-friend is--I'll see to it that you get your book back. And with good therapy, they may regain use of their hands in just a few months...
Not returning a borrowed book--talk about deadly sin!
Jackie notes: Not returning a borrowed book--talk about deadly sin!
In former days I liked to share my books as I did my friends.
Then, as years passed I decided I was sick of not gettting back books I'd loaned in good faith ... so I took action.
I wrote post cards asking for return of my tomes. (Everyone knows reading a Post Card is fair game so even the postman knew he had a book "thief" on his route!)
Some books were returned ... with profuse apologies in some cases (I wrote Post Card thanking them) and with huffiness in others -- I don't miss the latter folks!
For the truly recalcitrant borrowers I sent padded brown SAS-Envelopes and retrieved all but a few!
The most flagrant case of booknapping was one person who had the unmitigated gall to turn in a bunch of books to the Library Fund Raising Book Sale where I discovered two missing treasures with my name, bookplate and telephone number in them.
I paid the ransom!
Should I ever encounter that person agin I shall take pleasure in cutting that person dead!
The gender of the booknapper has been disguised to avoid starting a bruhaha about whether the worst offenders are men or women.
...does human consciousness formulate Big Questions which it can not ever answer...Rusty - tsuwm just started a post with one such big'gry question.