You won't find "malamanteau" in any printed dictionary for a while. Image from Flickr.
There are many reasons new words are created, but “malamanteau” is confounding many people. If you’re a fan of XKCD the webcomic, you saw what one author believes malamanteau means. However, if you’ve heard malamanteau as the word of the day at the coffee shop or water cooler, you may be wondering what the heck it means. No, it doesn’t have to do with love, mathematics, paycheck loans or sarcasm. Malamanteu is actually relatively simple.
The original definition of Malamanteau
On XKCD this morning, the author drew a non-existent Wikipedia page for the word “malamanteu.” To be clear: this Wikipedia page did not exist at the time, but it now does, and redirects to XKCD. The definition XKCD offers for malamanteu is “a neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism.” XKCD may be a free comic that wields all kind of social power, but this one left even financial industry creative types and English professors both saying “Huh?”
Breaking down malamanteau
The definition of malamanteau makes a lot more sense when you break down the basic parts of the definition. Neologism is simply a new word. A portmanteau is a blended word, first described by Lewis Carroll in Through The Looking Glass. Any word that blends both the sound and the meaning of two words is a portmanteau – for example, “don’t” is a portmanteau of “do” and “not.” Finally, a malapropism is where one word is substituted for another that sounds the same – but does not mean the same. The word malapropism comes from a word that means “inappropriate.” For example, allegory instead of alligator.
What malamanteu really means
So, what does malamanteu really mean? Malamanteu is a new word for a blended word created by wrongly mixing an inappropriate, similar-sounding word with a new word. In other words, you have a malamanteu if you combine “illterate” (in place of “obliterate”) with “masil” or some other non-existant word to create “masillerterate” to describe what the stock market crash did to the economy.
In other words, malamanteu is, in itself, a malamanteu – a created word that combines a created word with an incorrect word.
Sources:
XKCD
Wikipedia Malapropism
Wikipedia Neologism
Wikipedia Portmanteau
I think even frenemy and bromance are only portmanteaus, not malapropisms?
He's giving more examples of portmanteaus.
better examples,
frenemy,
bromance,
etc
Nerds.
I don't think anyone was quite as mystified as you think. If I had an English professor who didn't know what a neologism, malapropism, and portmanteau were I'd kick him out and teach his class for him. I'm a math teacher and I didn't stop to say "Huh?" for a second. I think any reasonably literate English speaker got the joke the second they saw the word "malamanteau." No explanation needed. Coining a derogatory word that is an example of the thing it decries, is funny.
Your example of a portmanteau is pretty terrible. "Don't" is a contraction. While it is technically made from parts of two words, its meaning is in fact both of those words, in order. It is NOT a new word with a blended meaning.
Also, what the hell do financial industry creative types have to do with anything? Are they somehow authorities on defining new words?
I'm overreacting to your overreaction. BLAM!
You got me, LlamaChomp. I hadn't had my coffee yet, so "don't" was the best thing I could come up with. Care to offer a better example?
As far as financial industry types, I was saying they're good at coming up with all kinds of new, blended, and only somewhat understandable things – so "malamanteau" sounded like their cup of tea.
Thanks for the explanation about the financial industry types. They are buzzword creation enthusiasts, which I should have realized.
As far as portmanteau examples, they range from the common:
smoke + fog = smog
breakfast + lunch = brunch
spoon + fork = spork
to popular culture name mashups:
Bill + Hillary = Billary
Ben + Jennifer = Bennifer
Brad + Angelina = Brangelina
(Why do those all start with 'b'?)
to the occasional multipurpose suffix:
workoholic
chocoholic
I might even label those last two malamanteaus, since they don't have any semantic relationship to alcohol.
I'm not sure "workoholic" and "chocoholic" are malamanteaus. Technically there isn't a malapropism in either– they are portmanteaus of alcoholic and X. However…
If malamanteau is extended to say the malapropism can be applied to its new definition, then it should work. E.g. chocoholic- one who is addicted to chocolate; it is comprised of "choc" the neologism and "oholic" (from alcoholic) which has nothing to do with the original definition of "alcoholic" -one who is addicted to alcohol. This makes the use of "alcoholic" for this portmanteau a malaproism and, in short, a malamanteau.
This wouldn't work for "workoholic," for "work" is a word in itself, unlike "choc." Unless you are allowed to use "oholic" for the neologism and the malapropism, which it isn't.
Technically, someone addicted to chocolate or work, should be a "chololatic" or "workic," respectivly (by the similar coinage of "alcoholic"). The use of "oholic as a suffix relating to addiction has emerged only because of the word "alcoholism" and its definition– addiction to alcohol.
Actually, I s'pose your "prefix-oholic" examples would be… metonymanteaux (can I say that)? As you say, these concepts aren't related to alcohol, but the association is there: addiction (though why this hasn't bled through to "narcoholic" or "fumiholic," I don't know).
Or maybe I'm just thinking too hard on this one.
Wow… you probably don't even remember writing this post.
… or care.
PPiper, I do actually remember writing the post
Erm… no.. Malamanteau is itself NOT a malamanteau. Malamanteau is itself a portmanteu of malapropism and portmanteau.
Yeah, that's what I thought, too…
Get ready:
Malamanteau is a portmanteau, but does not include a malapropism.
If you think of a malamanteau as an example of malamanteau, you are using it incorrectly, which makes your use a malapropism, which then makes your usage correct. But if you're using it correctly, then it's incorrect! GAH!
It's like the "this statement is false" paradox, but using way bigger words to get there.
But "malamanteau" is also a neologism.
Malamanteau is itself a malamanteau