In Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Humpty Dumpty and Alice discuss the poem, ‘Jabberwocky’. The egg explains the word “slithy”:
“Well, ‘slithy‘ means ‘lithe and slimy.’ ‘Lithe’ is the same as ‘active.’ You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word.”
Both before and after Lewis Carroll, what is now called the portmanteau was a common way of coining new words. James Joyce was one such coineur.
I have recently been enjoying the portmanteaux of Ramesh Satkurunath, whose blend words (as he calls them) are normally transmitted by text message before appearing on his blog. They are a joy to read. Here are some of them:
frizzen – adj. wayward hair that floats above and outside the intended style due to cold and wet conditions.
Example use: She walked into my life with bedraggled clothes and frizzen hair, and brought the storm with her.
hegemnemonic – The predominant power of one person over the memory of another.
snoozical – 1 a musical so dull it makes its audience fall asleep, 2 the sound of a snoring choir.
These are the only examples I could find on Ramesh’s blog, which must mean that some of his invented words were published only via SMS. I hope he still has them somewhere, and that he will one day bring out a dictionary with all of his invented words in. I would definitely buy it.
It should be pointed out, though, that some of these words already exist.
‘Frizzen’ is already in use, although with a different meaning. The frizzen is a curved plate of steel used in flintlock firearms, says Wikipedia. ‘Snoozical’ has been used according to Ramesh’s definition (1) in this review.
‘Hegemnemonic’ seems to be unique to Ramesh, and it’s probably my favourite out of those listed above, partly because I find it so difficult to pronounce.
My challenge is now to introduce these words to my writing vocabulary. The example use of ‘frizzen’ is inspiring (a little reminiscent of Handler) and I am sure I will have fun using it in a similar context in future.