A Topic for Brunch: The Portmanteau

Brunch: It’s not breakfast, it’s not lunch; it’s neither, and both. I’m not talking about what you order—that’s totally up to you*—but the word itself, which falls into one of my all-time favorite linguistic-concept categories: the portmanteau.

*Seriously, though, you’re getting the steak tartare? For brunch?

The portmanteau: many wonderful new words wait within.Originating from the French portemanteau—a traveling case large enough for a cloak—it signifies a word that is a blend of two other words, with certain parameters: the new word that emerges must not be merely the two original words stuck together side-by-side, and it must mean something different from either of the original words taken alone or both taken together. That is, it is a word cloaked in the meaning of the other two.

One of the great joys of reading, of course, is discovering new words, and it was while reading Amanda Nelson’s post this week that—in addition to agreeing with all of her sentiments—I was pleased to discover “mombies” and to be reminded how much fun words like that can be.

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Don't Be So Literal! (Okay, I'm Trying...)

With all apologies to the Kindle, iPad, Nook, and even the Itty Bitty Book Light, the best literary devices available to English readers and writers are still the metaphor, analogy, simile and the like. They are what make language interesting, breathing life into the most common of words and revealing patterns in the way we think as societies and individuals, as well as the way we use language to engage, influence, and even manipulate. It’s what makes the literal into literature; in almost every example of the literary form throughout history, from the Good Book to The Great Gatsby and beyond, the exact meaning is but one interpretation (and, depending on who you are or who you are talking to, not necessarily the correct one).

But when it comes to my own everyday writing, I’ll admit that I have been one of those “usage literalists” that self-proclaimed “veteran drudge” (and former head of the Baltimore Sun copy desk) John McIntyre addressed this week on his blog, “You Don’t Say”. As an editor—both of other people’s work, and especially of my own—I get almost giddy when I spot an “over” or “under” before a number and relish changing it to the more precise “more than” or “less than.” I mean, come on—“over” and “under” refer to spatial not quantitative relationships.* Am I right, people?

*Though, somehow, it’s never occurred to me** that the sports-betting line known as the “Over/Under” should therefore really be called the “More Than/Less Than.”

**Until just now.

McIntyre’s post sent me to some self-reflecting. Am I sometimes being “absurd,” as the respected former English professor and author of Common Errors in English Usage Paul Brians would have it? Is the problem really the use of language or my own relationship to it? Is it the words? Or is it me?

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Words, Football, Nuclear War, and the Delightful Rediscovery of Don DeLillo

If you're like me, you've found two ways to consistently and satisfyingly occupy a fall Sunday:

1. Exploring the vagaries of the English language, particularly in terms of its evolution in literature and daily use in society
2. Watching football

These, of course, are not as unrelated as they may at first seem. Anyone with a working knowledge of English who also watches sports on TV with the sound turned up, can derive hours of frustration* from the constant recycling of phrases that don’t really mean what they are intended to mean and the use of qualifiers such as “obviously” and “literally” for situations that are anything but. (For example, “adversity” is not necessarily “a state of hardship or affliction” or “a calamitous event;” it is facing third-and-long, down by four, with only three minutes to go.)

*Or joy. Fortunately, someone has gone to the trouble of creating a searchable sports cliché database. If you're a sports fan who somehow also enjoys seeing the language abused, it's worth a look—though you may not derive as many minutes of meaningless fun from it as I did.

That said, I love many of the words that certain gifted writers use when writing about sports and even the language of sports. I have, for example, been a longtime devotee of sportswriter/author Joe Posnanski, from his (relatively recent) days at the Kansas City Star onto his current stint as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, where he recently touched on the fact that “football has an argot all its own.” And while I have never before taken book recommendations from the SI letters section, this suggestion from a Mr. Robert Kelley of Iowa City, IA, caught my attention:

Fans of Posnanski's column might want to consult Don DeLillo's 1972 novel, End Zone, which dramatizes the complicated relationship between ordinary language and football jargon.

This intrigued me, because I have long considered my inability to connect with DeLillo’s prose to be a personal failing. I mean, how, when a friend first pushed a copy of it on me in college, could I possibly have not liked White Noise?*

*Here’s how: I didn’t.

But maybe I had not eased myself in. After all, as I was to find out, End Zone, DeLillo’s second novel, would come to be considered his “most accessible,” in which he tries out some of the themes that would dominate his later works, but with a—for me—more enjoyable, disturbingly comic approach.

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When words were scary...

There was a time when the most popular way to scare your closest friends and family was through relatively simple and straightforward stories. Well before Halloween became all about dressing up your dog like a cat or a bumblebee or Ron Paul (depending on the breed), All Hallow’s Eve was a time for sitting around and telling tales of the dead. Ghost stories were also the most traditional way to spend Christmas Eve, particularly in Victorian England (“A Christmas Carol,” anyone?).

But over time, good, old-fashioned ghost stories have lost some of their ability to spook. While many of you reading this might prefer a fireside reading of Edgar Allen Poe, most Americans will be off at Paranormal Activity 3.

Mr. E. A. Poe: A scary dude who knew how to use scary words.But aside from all the additional competition and our ever-shrinking attention spans, it seems that words themselves—certain words that used to chill, frighten, horrify, spook, and plenty of other synonyms for scare—have lost their power to petrify.

For example: creepy. When it first joined the language in 1831, this adjective referred to "the sensation of the flesh creeping in horror." But it no longer creeps out too many people, particularly the members of Generation Text. As University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman observed on his blog, Language Log, teenagers are using the expression “That’s so creepy…” to qualify coincidental or unexpected bits of news, as in "You were there, too? That's so creepy!" or “Isn’t it creepy how she called at the last minute?” In a subsequent post, Liberman charted the similar taming of other formerly scary words, including:

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A myth you shouldn't miss...

Just a reminder that college application season is in full swing (not that anyone applying to college or sharing a household with anyone applying to college needs any reminding). The Washington Post offers some timely advice with a list of seven college-admissions myths; you might want to take special note of #6:

6. Essays don’t really matter much in the end because grades and test scores are so dominant in admissions decisions.

Don’t believe it. A poorly written, typo-filled essay can kill any application, and a beautiful piece can lift a student over another who looks similar on paper. Yes, college admissions officers can often tell if a student didn’t actually write the essay. Some compare the writing with SAT and ACT essays. And no, don’t think every subject will work as long as it is well written: Admissions officers have no interest in a student’s love life, brushes with the law or the trip to Costa Rica to fulfill a community service requirement in which the applicant wound up learning more from the locals than the locals got from the applicant.

Ah, good advice: A great essay can make all the difference, but only if it's the right essay, and that means the right topic and the right words for the student who is writing it. Anyone who wishes to learn more about how VW can help precisely with this process is invited to navigate over to the For Students section of the site.

And thus ends the shameless plug. Happy Halloween!