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July 15, 2013portmanteaus
Gerrymandering is the re-drawing of district lines in elaborate twisted ways to unfairly influence the weight of votes by district. It’s a cruel political move to dilute the power of demographic areas. In 1812, Governor Elbridge Gerry changed the shapes of districts to skew voting towards his political party. A newspaper commented that the new contorted shape looked like a salamander, and the term was coined. Gerrymandering is an eponym and a portmanteau at the same time. Yeah. That is pretty awesome.
Gerry + salamander = Gerrymander
I’ve been thinking about eponyms and portmanteaus a lot recently, because I need a dissertation topic, and those two kinds of word formations make me happy. However, I can’t think of a specific question I could ask and answer in 4 months, and I haven’t found any great research as a jump-off point, so for now I’m just pleased to find a word that combines these two concepts.
Appreciate a word today!
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January 23, 2012
1. beau
2. pomade
3. flummox (I spelled it wrong)
Lovely evening with the Robert. Hot cider in the lounge. I taught a guy that Seatac is a portmanteau of Seattle and Tacoma, which he had never realized. Someone had to spell OHMAGODITS cabotage. When I spelled flummox, I had a picture of the ‘m’ taking up a lot of space, but I couldn’t figure out if that was because it was an important part of the word, or because there were 2 m’s. I chose poorly.
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November 23, 2010