5

This is slightly awkward to explain, so I will be as clear as possible. I am aware of what a portmanteau is, as you will see below, but I am unsure if my examples classify as such.

I'm looking to find out if there is a word similar to the term portmanteau but for when you join two words where the last syllable/sound of the first word is the same as the first syllable/sound of the second word. The spelling is often the same on the end of word one and start of word two, but not always.

Some examples of what I am trying to explain are as follows:

  • Murderotica (murder + erotica)
  • Disconnecktie (disconnect + neck tie)
  • Bayonetwork (bayonet + network)
  • Morgan Freemango (Morgan Freeman + mango)
  • Typicalculation (typical + calculation)

Are these still examples of portmanteau or something else? By the definition of portmanteau and examples I think they aren't.

A portmanteau word fuses both the sounds and the meanings of its components, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. (Wikipedia)

The reason I assume my examples are not portmanteaux is that both my words remain "whole" to a certain extent and can still be made out. In a stereotypical portmanteau parts of each original word are lost.

herisson
  • 81,803
TomKDev
  • 59
  • As you (and Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau ) observe, a portmanteau word fuses both the sounds and the meanings of its components. Do your merged words have a meaning of their own? What is a Morgan Freemango, what does one do with a disconnecktie? – Spagirl Nov 16 '16 at 14:10
  • @Spagirl They are nonsensical word play in reality. Some of the examples are song titles for an album I own. The others are answers in a gameshow quiz where we give a clue to each half of the word and the contestant must work out the joined word we have created – TomKDev Nov 16 '16 at 14:13
  • THB, I'm not sure in that case that they qualify as word play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_play , if all that links the words is that one ends in the letters another begins in. That's just overlapping words. – Spagirl Nov 16 '16 at 14:23
  • 2
    Possible duplicate of What do you call the process of combining two words to create a new one? – Edwin Ashworth Nov 16 '16 at 14:26
  • @EdwinAshworth - not a duplicate, OP knows the term portmanteau, but is asking whether it may be applied to the terms cited aboce. –  Nov 16 '16 at 14:29
  • 1
    @EdwinAshworth I would agree with JOSH here as I am aware of what a portmanteau is and explain why I think my examples are different to my understanding of portmanteau. I have renamed the questions with "Is this a portmanteau?" to add clarity to this question and distinguish it from the question linked – TomKDev Nov 16 '16 at 14:36
  • 1
    Taking the idea of overlapping words, perhaps you could extrapolate from the language around Venn diagrams. After all, what you essentially have is two sets of letters with a subset of letters that are common to both. Perhaps intersecting words would do. Or as Venn called his diagrams "Eulerian Circles" after Euler, perhaps these can be Eulerian words, or Venn words, Set-words? – Spagirl Nov 16 '16 at 14:38
  • @spagirl I like your thinking here. We could almost create a new term for these words that overlap. I really love the term "Eulerian Word" but would that make sense, as I thought Eulerian was in essence "to use every point/edge at least once". (may be a bad understanding on my part) – TomKDev Nov 16 '16 at 14:42
  • @TomK89 I'll be honest, I know nothing of Euler at all! But I do think the lack of meaning of the resultant letter string is very much fundamental. You aren't creating 'words', You are creating an answer to a puzzle in the same way that 192016 would be the answer if you gave clues to the years 1920 and 2016. Its an answer but that's its only meaning. – Spagirl Nov 16 '16 at 14:46
  • 4
    @spagirl I have the PERFECT term for this... Venn Diagrammar!! – TomKDev Nov 16 '16 at 14:50
  • 1
    round of applause :) – Spagirl Nov 16 '16 at 14:59
  • That's not the definition of 'portmanteau'. It's one of several overlapping/conflicting definitions. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 16 '16 at 15:55
  • Some of your examples don't seem to have any meaning outside of puzzle context, but if you did form a meaningful word in that manner it would be a portmanteau, but part of a subset of portmanteaus meeting your extra criteria. I don't have a word for the subset. – nnnnnn Oct 26 '20 at 09:30

1 Answers1

1

An "overlapping blend" is the most specific term I can find for this.

General Poxter
  • 500