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One hundred facts that are interesting but ultimately useless.

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#903082 added January 24, 2017 at 6:01pm
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Portmanteau
Portmanteau
- linguistics -

​​A "portmanteau" is a word formed by the fusion of two other words to create a new, blended meaning. For example, "brunch" is a meal between "breakfast" and "lunch", a "spork" is a utensil that resembles both a "spoon" and a "fork", and "smog" is thick "smoke" that behaves like "fog".

A portmanteau is similar but distinct from a "compound word". While portmanteaus combine word fragments, compounds are formed from complete and unbroken words (i.e. "sleepwalk", "mockingbird", or "doghouse").

A portmanteau is also distinct from a "contraction", which functions more like an abbreviation of two words that frequently appear together (i.e. "do" and "not" becomes "don't", or "shall" and "not" becomes "shan't").


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