Liz here.
Confession time: I love when famous people who are dating become one word. Brangelina. Bennifer. The entire cast of Glee. In college, my friend Cassie started dating this guy Brent, and Brassie was born.
This phenomenon has a name, and as a student of the French language, I love using it: portmanteau.
A portmanteau is a word that is formed from the blending of two words. Although we may notice it most in celebrity relationships, portmanteaux (the plural of portmanteau—portmanteaus, for the less linguistically adventurous) have been around for quite some time. Lewis Carroll gave the word its modern use in Through the Looking Glass, Carroll's sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and we as a society have never looked back.
Without portmanteaux, we wouldn't have sporks or brunch or Destiny's Child's “Bootylicious.” I know I've said you shouldn't make up words, but blending two already-existing words together? I fully support that.
And there is your challenge.
PRACTICE
You know what's coming.
Write for fifteen minutes about an interaction between Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and all their little adopted and real children. Create some portmanteaux to describe the scene and to pepper the conversation. Post your lively scene in the comments so we can share in the insanity.
And if you post, make sure you comment on a few other posts and help your other Practitioners out.
Informalicious post, Liz! 😉 I’m not sure all of the Brangelinas would FIT in a 15 minute story… Hmm…
Ha nice, August.
Informalicious post, Liz! 😉 I’m not sure all of the Brangelinas would FIT in a 15 minute story… Hmm…
Ha nice, August.
Liz, this was a hard one for me. You’re taking me out of my comfortable zone into right brained adventures.
“Mommy, why do all those people follow us around?” asked a little child.
“Because they want to take our picture dear,” replied the mother. The young child didn’t like that answer.
“But why?” he said again.
“Because your daddy and I are both famous movie stars, and people want to know about our lives,” the mother answered serenely.
“Well, I don’t like them.”
“Neither do I,” said an older sibling. “I call them popparobbers. Every time they take a picture of you, they steal a little bit of your happiness.” The younger child cringed at this explanation. He remembered all the times popparobbers took pictures of him. “You know when you see the light and hear the click,” continued the older sibling, “that’s then it happens. They get you with their flashuum.”
“Wha-what’s a ‘flashuum’?” the now panicked child inquired.
“Nothing dear,” assured his mother. “Try not to believe everything your older brother tells you.” The little boy felt reassured. He couldn’t help being a little scared though. His thoughts drifted off to popparobbers, flashuums, and other terrors.
Ryan. I agree. This was a hard one (I actually wrote the exercise; you can blame me). But you dominated. Is flashuum like a vacuum mixed with a camera flash? And popparobber is brilliant. Besides that, you do a good job with the scene, keeping the dialogue flowing. Nice Ryan.
Thanks! I’ve deliberately practiced good dialogue. I’m glad you noticed.
Yeah, flashuum was a portmanteau of flash and vacuum. I thought of popparobbers first, but I wanted a second one to smooth things out.
Nice. 🙂
Liz, this was a hard one for me. You’re taking me out of my comfortable zone into right brained adventures.
“Mommy, why do all those people follow us around?” asked a little child.
“Because they want to take our picture dear,” replied the mother. The young child didn’t like that answer.
“But why?” he said again.
“Because your daddy and I are both famous movie stars, and people want to know about our lives,” the mother answered serenely.
“Well, I don’t like them.”
“Neither do I,” said an older sibling. “I call them popparobbers. Every time they take a picture of you, they steal a little bit of your happiness.” The younger child cringed at this explanation. He remembered all the times popparobbers took pictures of him. “You know when you see the light and hear the click,” continued the older sibling, “that’s then it happens. They get you with their flashuum.”
“Wha-what’s a ‘flashuum’?” the now panicked child inquired.
“Nothing dear,” assured his mother. “Try not to believe everything your older brother tells you.” The little boy felt reassured. He couldn’t help being a little scared though. His thoughts drifted off to popparobbers, flashuums, and other terrors.
Ryan. I agree. This was a hard one (I actually wrote the exercise; you can blame me). But you dominated. Is flashuum like a vacuum mixed with a camera flash? And popparobber is brilliant. Besides that, you do a good job with the scene, keeping the dialogue flowing. Nice Ryan.
Thanks! I’ve deliberately practicing good dialogue. I’m glad you noticed.
Yeah, flashuum was a portmanteau of flash and vacuum. I thought of popparobbers first, but I wanted a second one to smooth things out.
Nice. 🙂
Girls and boys start grade school with different approaches to arithmetic problems – girls favour a slow and accurate approach and boys a faster but more error-prone approach.The girls’ approach gives them an early advantage, but by the end of the sixth grade, boys had surpassed the girls, a study by the University of Missouri says.The study found that boys showed more preference for solving arithmetic problems by reciting an answer from memory, whereas girls were more likely to compute the answer by counting.Understanding these results may help teachers and parents guide students better, says Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.“The observed difference in arithmetic accuracy between the sexes may arise from a the willingness to risk being wrong by answering from memory before one is sure of the correct answer,” said Drew Bailey, study author and a recent recipient of a Ph.D. in psychological science from University of Missouri, according to a Missouri statement.“In our study, we found that boys were more likely to call out answers than girls, even though they were less accurate early in school. Over time, though, this practice at remembering answers may have allowed boys to surpass girls in accuracy,” Bailey added.The study followed approximately 300 children as they progressed from first to sixth grade. In the first and second grades, the boys’ tendency to give an answer quickly led to more answers in total, but also more wrong answers.Girls, on the other hand, were right more often, but responded more slowly and to fewer questions. By sixth grade, the boys were answering more problems and getting more correct.“Developing mathematical skill may be part ‘practice makes perfect’ and part ‘perfect makes practice,’” Bailey said.“Attempting more answers from memory gives risk-takers more practice, which may eventually lead to improvements in accuracy. It also is possible that children who are skilled at certain strategies are more likely to use them and therefore acquire more practice.”
http://totalca.in/?p=1293
Girls and boys start grade school with different approaches to arithmetic problems – girls favour a slow and accurate approach and boys a faster but more error-prone approach.The girls’ approach gives them an early advantage, but by the end of the sixth grade, boys had surpassed the girls, a study by the University of Missouri says.The study found that boys showed more preference for solving arithmetic problems by reciting an answer from memory, whereas girls were more likely to compute the answer by counting.Understanding these results may help teachers and parents guide students better, says Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.“The observed difference in arithmetic accuracy between the sexes may arise from a the willingness to risk being wrong by answering from memory before one is sure of the correct answer,” said Drew Bailey, study author and a recent recipient of a Ph.D. in psychological science from University of Missouri, according to a Missouri statement.“In our study, we found that boys were more likely to call out answers than girls, even though they were less accurate early in school. Over time, though, this practice at remembering answers may have allowed boys to surpass girls in accuracy,” Bailey added.The study followed approximately 300 children as they progressed from first to sixth grade. In the first and second grades, the boys’ tendency to give an answer quickly led to more answers in total, but also more wrong answers.Girls, on the other hand, were right more often, but responded more slowly and to fewer questions. By sixth grade, the boys were answering more problems and getting more correct.“Developing mathematical skill may be part ‘practice makes perfect’ and part ‘perfect makes practice,’” Bailey said.“Attempting more answers from memory gives risk-takers more practice, which may eventually lead to improvements in accuracy. It also is possible that children who are skilled at certain strategies are more likely to use them and therefore acquire more practice.”
http://totalca.in/?p=1293
I absolutely have no idea who Brad Jitts is or Angelina Poli since I am not a magazine reader or a movie goer, but I always make up words because who says that the words in the English (or-any) language are the only words in the English Oreni language.
But I know for a fact that there are two people in my carton; Simi and Martin and they have a bunch of kids that they are always taking to the zoo. Esterday, the Simartins had a hard day and they skriffed into Duffy’s Tavern for qintupped smartinis. (Thoser martini’s with five pittless olives. These martinis always made them joli, so it was werth giving them a wide berth when they slambled out.) Be that as it may, their kids, Dodo, Pods, MacDougal and Maximillian are junk-food addicts and have never been on normal diets. They’ve always skrunged through on beanie-balls, slakoes, root-bier and hogwissles. Of course, they sleep under bankroots and over the underbellies of Macintyres on the glaes of throckmorten.
For fifteen minutes of slambangling
the alfabetz you can give me a plaid coverlet with which to lay my dictionary
to rest.
He opened his eyes. Pax frowned, his toy dinosaur was broken it’s head crushed open.
“Zara,” Pax said shouting. “Zara what happened to T-Rexxar?”
“Hmm,” Zahara said from the couch. She hummed again from the fashion magazine she was reading. “What’s the problem P-T?”
“Hrrr,” Pax glared at her.
She sneaked at peak at him as blinked. “What?”
“Hrrr,” Pax kept glaring.
“Alright, you nerds.” Shiloh appeared with an apron and was holding a tray. “Who want’s to try my dookies?”
Zahara turned away from Pax who was still glaring. On Shiloh’s tray looked like some form crusted piece of who knows.
“What’s a dookie?” Zahara said.
Shiloh smiled. “It’s a donut cookie.” She pushed her tray forward. It almost spilled and she fixed her hold. “Try it Zehra.”
Zahara rolled her eyes. “Shil, again with that name.”
“Well don’t call me ‘Shil’,” Shiloh said.
Zahara took a dookie and bit. “Nah, Shil is a good name for you.”
Shiloh narrowed her eyes. Zahara grinned.
“Hey,” Pax said. “I’m still glaring here.”
“Keep glaring,” Zahara said. She went back to her couch and back to reading. Pax stopped glaring. His eyes widened as he saw the tray Shiloh was holding.
“Hey, uh,” Pax said.
Shiloh smiled as she pushed her tray forward at him. “Come try a dookie Pet.”
Pax blushed as he held his hand out over the dookies. Shiloh was staring at his face and he gulped.
“Shoh,” Pax said. “You’re making me feel awkwierd.”
It took a moment before Shiloh’s smiled dropped. “Oh, sorry. Is that bad?”
“I don’t know.” Pax bit a dookie. He chewed and chewed while Shiloh was chewing her own lips.
“Is that bad?” Shiloh said.
Pax gulped. “I don’t know.”
Shiloh’s lips fell flat. Pax looked at the ground, the crumbs collected at his feet. Shiloh deepened a breath and exhaled.
“It’s bad,” Zahara said. “Definitely bad.”
not part of the discussion but an experience:
The Long journey of eight hours came to an end as our jeep turned right and stopped in front of a gate, the entrance of the campus of my destination. The vehicle was lucky to travel in a big boat crossing the Ganges river and carrying us joyfully through country side of katihar rushing to Purnea town to cross over to Bagmara, that is 5 km from Purnea town. The two young beautiful women who opened the gate for the jeep to carry us to the house of my dwelling for the coming years had sweetly smiling gentle faces.
Having received the refreshing female smiles and greetings our jeep meandered to the front of my destination building. The warm greetings of Frs George and Abraham relaxed us. When they led us to the refreshing table of the refectory we felt happy and consoled. Instead of lunch when they brought tea my heart gave way. My stomach had already started burning due to lack of energy. But, when the fast hands of the cook Subardany brought steaming chapattis with some additions my spirit was boosted up.
The room to rest was already in the state of an active frying pan. It joyfully welcomed me to the desert experience in the absence of electricity. As the air was heated up it was in a rush to go up rather than to visit me in the room. With the sweltering sweat of my body fondling the quilt i stretched out my body to the hope of resting my brain. A sigh of wonder at how to remain in this place of dessert for coming years did not hesitate to come out. The tired body with the with the feeling of out of place submitted to the strong supportive bed.
this one was tough but I tried.
“Brangelina? They called you Brangelina?”
“Yes, you know, magazines needed fancy words to sell more copies”
“Magazines? What are you talking about granny?”
“Oh dear, the world has changed too much for this old lady. A magazine is like a website but printed on paper.”
“Why? You didn’t have tablets?”
“Oh darling. Yes, but at that time we loved to have things on paper. You’ll learn about it as soon as you start school.
“Oh. Brangelina. Brangelina. Brangelina. It’s funny.”
“Yes, it’s not so bad. I didn’t like it at that time but it’s funny now.”
“Can I say that a table with the chairs is a chable?”
“Of course! Funny isn’t it?”
“I love it! Mom, mom, there’s a chable in our kitchen!!”
She ran to her mom, wobbly but fast on her short legs. Angelina watched her until she left the room. Thinking at her “brangelina” season was still painful even if in the last years she made some peace with her past.
“Mom, can I have a bluethie?”
“What’s a bluethie, honey?”
“It’s a blueberry smoothie, but bluethie is a lot more funny. It’s like Brangelina!”
“Did you disturb your grandmother again?”
Angelina was smiling. “I want a bluethie” she thought.
Gonna make myself a bluethie right now. Shame Brangelina is now Brangelova.
Angelina glared at Brad with those eyes of hers. She breathed heavy, the tears in her eyes saying everything the last ten years has held, but now is gone.
Then she handed him the paper. Not an ordinary paper. A divoraper.