July 30, 2007

Portmanteau words

Reporters often refer to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as "Brangelina". The mixture of Spanish and English spoken by many Hispanics in the U.S. is called "Spanglish". These are portmanteau words, made when we blend two words into one. Take a look at this list of portmanteau words used in everyday English. Then play a game clicking here!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Blog,

Many people reffer to Brazil, Russia, India and China as 'The BRICS'.

Is it a portmanteau?

Cheers, Ronaldo.

Mônica said...

Hi Ronaldo, the list compiled by Princeton comprises portmanteau words and acronyms, which seems to be the case in BRICS (I hadn't heard that one!). Take a look at an explanation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym