Comments on: Malamanteau

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:21:05 +0000

Here is an invented example:

Start with a neologism: woot
Find another word that might be used with it: terminator
Find a malapropism for the second word: Schwarzenegger
Combine the neologism with the malapropism: wootenegger

The meaning for my new word (which would have been wootinator without the malapropism) is, “One who is great at catching the best deals on woot.com.”

It took me a while to even figure out the word, but having an example should help in the future.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:57:49 +0000

Gosh, by making the occasional mistake it made their comments…. Wait a minute… it changed nothing because any reasonable person can still understand exactly what he meant. In fact by realising that the spelling “portmanteu” is a misspelling of “portmanteau” you demonstrated that you understood exactly what word it was, testifying to the point that it really made no difference.

So either, you’re a genius because you could decipher this gross misspelling.
Or, it’s no big deal.

This may be a good time to tell you that, while we’re all very impressed by your spelling skills and knowledge about words (I’m undressing as we speak), you may or may not know about this thing called “spoken language”. It’s what happens when you get off the blogowebs and actually talk to real people. Out there spelling is irrelevant.

By: Mania

Mania — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:03:20 +0000

Yeah, it seems like most of the suggested malamanteaux are neologisms and portmanteau, but there aren’t a lot of examples in the wild for them being used as malapropisms.

If you find any, I’d love to hear about it!!

By: Conor

Conor — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:38:52 +0000

*brain hurt* – to ed: how is that comment too short?

By: Aleš Friedl

Aleš Friedl — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:34:59 +0000

//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.

By: Kenneth Laskoski

Kenneth Laskoski — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:38:44 +0000

Malamanteu is a neologism that combines portmanteu and malapropism. It means “it’s cause you’re dumb.”

By: Kenneth Laskoski

Kenneth Laskoski — Thu, 20 May 2010 03:35:28 +0000

I hate controversial issues.

By: TomF

TomF — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:32:05 +0000

“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”.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:57:39 +0000

Thanks Sandra, I have fixed the errors!

By: Francis Davey

Francis Davey — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:13:22 +0000

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.