In
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.
Linguistics
Blends deal with the action of abridging and then combining various
lexemeA lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
s to form a new word. However, the process of defining which words are true blends and which are not is more complicated. The difficulty comes in determining which parts of a new word are "recoverable" (its root can be distinguished).
There are many types of blends, based on how they are formed. Algeo, a linguist, proposed dividing blends into three groups :
- Phonemic Overlap: a syllable or part of a syllable is shared between two words
- Clipping: the shortening of two words and then compounding them
- Phonemic Overlap and Clipping: shortening of two words to a shared syllable and then compounding
Formation
Most blends are formed by one of the following methods:
- The beginning of one word is added to the end of the other (see portmanteau). For example, brunch
Brunch is a meal eaten between breakfast and lunch. The word is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch.-Origin of the word:The 1896 supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary cites Punch magazine which wrote that the term was coined in Britain in 1895 to describe a Sunday meal for "Saturday-night...
is a blend of breakfast and lunch.
- simultaneous (5) + broadcast (2) → simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
(3, exception)
- smoke (1) + fog (1) → smog
Smog is a type of air pollution; the word "smog" is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Modern smog is a type of air pollution derived from vehicular emission from internal combustion engines and industrial fumes that react in the atmosphere with sunlight to form secondary pollutants that also combine...
(1)
- spoon (1) + fork (1) → spork
A spork or a foon is a hybrid form of cutlery taking the form of a spoon-like shallow scoop with three or four fork tines. Spork-like utensils, such as the terrapin fork or ice cream fork, have been manufactured since the late 19th century; patents for spork-like designs date back to at least 1874,...
(1)
- The beginnings of two words are combined. For example, cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
is a blend of cyberneticCybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
and organismIn biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
.
- Two words are blended around a common sequence of sounds. For example, the word Californication
Californication is the seventh studio album by American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, released on June 8, 1999 on Warner Bros. Records. Produced by Rick Rubin, Californication marked the return of John Frusciante, who had previously appeared on Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik, to replace...
, from a song by the Red Hot Chili PeppersRed Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
, is a blend of CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and fornicationFornication typically refers to consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. For many people, the term carries a moral or religious association, but the significance of sexual acts to which the term is applied varies between religions, societies and cultures. The...
, and the word motelA motor hotel, or motel for short, is a hotel designed for motorists, and usually has a parking area for motor vehicles...
is a blend of motor and hotel
- Multiple sounds from two component words are blended, while mostly preserving the sounds' order. Poet Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
was well known for these kinds of blends. An example of this is the word slithy, a blend of lithe and slimy. This method is difficult to achieve and is considered a sign of Carroll's verbal witWit is a form of intellectual humour, and a wit is someone skilled in making witty remarks. Forms of wit include the quip and repartee.-Forms of wit:...
.
When two words are combined in their entirety, the result is considered a compound word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound, not a blend, of bag and pipe.
Blending of two roots
Blending can also apply to
rootIn vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s rather than words, for instance in Israeli Hebrew. "Israeli דחפור dakhpór ‘bulldozer’ hybridizes (Mishnaic Hebrew>>)Israeli דחפ √dħp ‘push’ and (Biblical Hebrew>>)Israeli חפר √ħpr ‘dig’[...] Israeli שלטוט shiltút ‘zapping, surfing the channels, flipping through the channels’ derives from (i) (Hebrew>)Israeli שלט shalát ‘remote control’, an ellipsis – like
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
remote (but using the noun instead) – of the (widely known) compound שלט רחוק shalát rakhók – cf. the
Academy of the Hebrew LanguageThe Academy of the Hebrew Language was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language."-History:...
’s שלט רחק shalát rákhak; and (ii) (Hebrew>)Israeli שטוט shitút ‘wandering, vagrancy’. Israeli שלטוט shiltút was introduced by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in [...] 1996. Synchronically, it might appear to result from reduplication of the final consonant of shalát ‘remote control’. Another example of blending which has also been explained as mere reduplication is Israeli גחלילית gakhlilít ‘fire-fly, glow-fly, Lampyris’. This coinage by
Hayyim Nahman BialikHayim Nahman Bialik , also Chaim or Haim, was a Jewish poet who wrote in Hebrew. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poets and came to be recognized as Israel's national poet.-Biography:...
blends (Hebrew>)Israeli גחלת gakhélet ‘burning coal’ with (Hebrew>)Israeli לילה láyla ‘night’. Compare this with the unblended חכלילית khakhlilít ‘(black) redstart, Phœnicurus’ (<
Ernest KleinErnest Klein, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian linguist, author, and rabbi.Klein was born in Szatmárnémeti , in Partium — a region of Austria-Hungary at the time, it is now in Romania; he received his PhD at the University of Vienna in 1925...
explains gakhlilít. Since he is attempting to provide etymology, his description might be misleading if one agrees that Hayyim Nahman Bialik had blending in mind."
"There are two possible etymological analyses for Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár ‘bank clerk, teller’. The first is that it consists of (Hebrew>)Israeli כסף késef ‘money’ and the (InternationalIn linguistics, an internationalism or international word is a loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology. These words exist in "several different languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from the ultimate source"...
/Hebrew>)Israeli agentive suffixIn linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
ר- -ár. The second is that it is a quasi-portmanteau wordA portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
which blends כסף késef ‘money’ and (Hebrew>)Israeli ספר √spr ‘count’. Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár started as a brand name but soon entered the common language. Even if the second analysis is the correct one, the final syllable ר- -ár apparently facilitated nativization since it was regarded as the Hebrew suffix ר- -år (probably of PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
pedigree), which usually refers to craftsmen and professionals, for instance as in Mendele Mocher SforimMendele Mocher Sforim , December 21, 1835 = January 2, 1836 , Kapyl — November 25, 1917 = December 8, 1917...
’s coinage סמרטוטר smartutár ‘rag-dealer’."
Lexical selection
Blending may occur with an error in lexical selection, the process by which a speaker uses his semantic knowledge to choose words. Lewis Carroll's explanation, which gave rise to the use of 'portmanteau' for such combinations, was:
Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words ... you will say "frumious."
The errors are based on similarity of meanings, rather than phonologicalPhonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
similarities, and the morphemes or phonemes stay in the same position within the syllable.
Use
Some languages, like Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, encourage the shortening and merging of borrowed foreign words (as in gairaigoGairaigo is Japanese for "loan word" or "borrowed word", and indicates a transliteration into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed from Chinese, primarily from English. Japanese also has a large number of loan words from...
), because they are long or difficult to pronounce in the target language. For example, karaoke, a combination of the Japanese word kara (meaning empty) and the clipped form oke of the English loanword "orchestra" (J. ōkesutora オーケストラ), is a Japanese blend that has entered the English language.
Many corporate brand names, trademarks, and initiatives, as well as names of corporations and organizations themselves, are blends. For example, WiktionaryWiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
, one of Wikipedia's sister projects, is a blend of wikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
and dictionaryA dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. Also, NabiscoNabisco is an American brand of cookies and snacks. Headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey, the company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Kraft Foods. Nabisco's plant in Chicago, a production facility at 7300 S...
is a blend of the initial syllables of National Biscuit Company.
See also
- Acronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
- Amalgamation (names)
An amalgamated name is a name that is formed by combining several previously existing names. These may take the form of an acronym or a blend ....
- Clipping (morphology)
In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts . Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening."...
- Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
- Conceptual blending
Conceptual Blending is a general theory of cognition. According to this theory, elements and vital relations from diverse scenarios are "blended" in a subconscious process known as Conceptual Blending, which is assumed to be ubiquitous to everyday thought and language...
- Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
- Phono-semantic matching
Phono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
- Portmanteau word
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
- Syllabic abbreviation
- Wiktionary Category:English blends