Malamanteau
by Jeff
Image text: The article has twenty-three citations, one of which is an obscure manuscript from the 1490's and the other twenty-two are arguments on LanguageLog.
Malamanteau when in language, someone combines two words to create another different word. Perhaps, the most famous example of this is "misunderestimate" which was used by former US President George W. Bush.
However, "misunderestimate" might be more of a malapropism as it references in the comic because it was said as a mistake rather than a purposeful combination of two words. At least I hope it was a mistake...
Neologism is also defined as a new word that is created by combining two different words.
However, the word Malamanteau is itself a malamanteau because it is the combination of malapropism and portmanteau it is a neologism and a portmanteau. Which points then to the extreme confusion in the supposed Wikipedia article that this comic is showing.
I hope I made that more clear than more murky for you.
UPDATED: Probably more murky... There is some good discussion in the comments from people who know more about language than I ever will.
May 12th, 2010
Let’s break it down a little more.
Neologism: a newly coined word (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/neologism)
Portmanteau: a combination of two words (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/portmanteau)
Malapropism: a mistake for a similar word (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/malapropism)
I must disagree with the assessment above: a neologism is not necessarily a combination of two words, and I fail to see how “malamanteau” is a malapropism. It *is* both a neologism and a portmanteau.
May 12th, 2010
A neologism is just a new word, not necessarily created from two existing words.
May 12th, 2010
Well, no, it didn’t make anything more clear, because you got most of the definitions wrong!
A neologism is simply a new word.
A Portmanteu is a combination of two words to create a new word, e.g. spoon + fork = spork
and a Malapropism is when a word or phrase is exchanged for a similar sounding word or phrase, usually for some sort of comic effect.
Malamanteu is a portmanteu of malapropism and portmanteu, instead of malapropism and neologism, hence the humour.
May 12th, 2010
I propose this as a simple explanation of this comic.
Wikipedia articles often have the words “Neologism”, “Portmanteu”, and/or “Malapropism”. So the joke is the comic illustrates a word that all three words can be used in the first paragraph of the article.
The genious here, is that this word is actually an example of all three:
Neologism: New word
Portmanteu: Combining of two words to make one
Malapropism: Using a similar sounding word
It is a neological word that is a portmanteu of malapropos and portmanteu and is a malapropos of portmanteu.
May 12th, 2010
Stop spelling the ending of these words incorrectly. It’s -EAU not -EU!
May 13th, 2010
Thanks Sandra, I have fixed the errors!
May 13th, 2010
But Malamanteau doesn’t contain a malapropism anywhere – unless you don’t use that word correctly (which is not the same as saying that you are using a malapropism), so this explanation doesn’t make sense. Malamaneteau is a portmanteau neologism I agree, but not malapropos in any obvious sense.
May 19th, 2010
“Malamanteau” is clever, but I much prefer the term “neolojism”, which is a portmanteau of “neo” + “logos” + “jism”, or literally a “new wank word”. Extreme bonus points for being self-referential.
I also like the term for the joyful feeling of having invented a particularly clever neolojism – a “neologasm”.
May 19th, 2010
I hate controversial issues.
May 20th, 2010
Malamanteu is a neologism that combines portmanteu and malapropism. It means “it’s cause you’re dumb.”
May 20th, 2010
//Malamanteau when in language, someone combines two words to create another different word.//
….. actually not. Combination of two words is called “Portmanteau”. Malamenteau is just joke, fake word, which was created *to be similar to* “portmanteau”.
Since used *once* in the famous xkcd comic, it is an example or malapropism — you want to say portmanteau, but you actually say malamanteau, which is… malapropism (mistake of similar world), as well as portmanteau (funny combination of two words).
I think that this paradox is nice. Malamanteau is not Portmanteau in its meaning (remenber, malamanteau is fake word which means nothing!), but…. it actually IS (example of) portmanteau.
June 30th, 2010
*brain hurt* – to ed: how is that comment too short?