Can you acronym?
I recently read an article in which the word satisfying it was used. The word intrigued me. According to the author, satisfy is a combination of suffice and satisfy.
This led me to investigate if there were other words that were formed by combining the sounds and meanings of two existing words. I learned that this compound word is called a portmanteau. I also discovered that there are many trunks that we use on a daily basis, often without realizing what they are.
A trunk is typically defined as a large trunk or suitcase that opens into two equal parts. However, Lewis Carroll gave it a new meaning in his book Through the Looking Glass, when he had Humpty Dumpty say, “Well, ‘slithy’ means ‘slender and slimy’ and ‘mimsy’ is ‘weak and miserable’. It’s like an acronym: there are two meanings gathered in one word”.
Some acronym words are very familiar and easy to deconstruct:
Backronym: back + acronym
Breathalyzer: breath + analyzer
Brexit: Great Britain + exit
Camcorder: camera + recorder
Caplet: capsule + tablet
Glamping: glamor + camping
Infomercial: information + commercial
Infotainment: information + entertainment
Inscape: interior + landscape
Internet: international + network
Malware: malicious + software
Manscaping: man + landscaping
Fusion: fusion + welding
Motel: engine + hotel
Motorcycle: motorized + bicycle
Netflix: internet + movies
Pension: couple + alimony
Pluot: plum + apricot
Simultaneous: simultaneous + broadcast
Sitcom: situational + comedy
Interpolation: teen + between
Wikipedia: wiki + encyclopedia
Some shorthand words are unfamiliar, but still relatively easy to deconstruct:
Affluenza: rich + influenza
Anticipation: anticipation + disappointment
Prequiem: preventive + requiem
Screenager: screen + teenager
Some words are very familiar, but the terms that contribute to them can be surprising, at least they surprised me. For example, I never knew that the word blog is made up of web and log.
Bit: binary + digit
Chortle: laugh + snort
Cyborg: cybernetics + organism
Endorphin: endogenous + morphine
Fortnight: fourteen + nights
Gainsay: against + say
Garmin: Garry Burrell + Min Kao
Gerrymander: Gerry + Salamander
Goodbye: God + be (with) + you
Groupon: group + coupon
Hassle: haggle + fight
Humongous: huge + monstrous
Ineptitude: inept + attitude
Microsoft: microcomputer + software
Modem: modulation + demodulation
Muppet: puppet + puppet
Pixel: image + element
prim: prim + sissy
Skype: sky + point to point
Smog: smoke + fog
Taxi: taximeter + convertible
Travelogue: trip + monologue
Vitamin: vita + amine
WiFi: wireless + fidelity
There were some words that I had never seen before. For example, I live in Wisconsin, where there is a lot of snow and ice, and I’ve never heard this word in any weather forecast, snice: snow and ice.
Ambigram: ambiguous + gram
Automatically: automatic + magically
Flexitarian: vegetarian + flexible
Mizzle: mist + drizzle
Sorgería: spam + forgery
Stagflation: stagnation + inflation
And some words seem like malapropisms when we first hear them, but they are actually real words; for example, refute: repudiate + refute.
It really makes me wonder who originally coined these words, why they felt the need to create them, and how they were so clever.