Words as old as smog [< smoke + fog] or as new as blog [< web + log] are called portmanteau words. Lewis Carroll coined the term to describe the linguistic blending of two words. Humpty Dumpty uses it to explain what words like slithy [< slimy + lithe] in Jabberwocky meant [1]. I was looking at a Welsh blog [2], when I paused to ask myself: "What do Francophones call blogs?" It seems there's a longish set of candidates: carnet, joueb [< journal + web], etc. I hoped that the Académie Française might provide some help, though their list doesn't include blog [3].
[1] Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, chapter 6:
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
"That's enough to begin with," Humpty Dumpty interrupted: "there are plenty of hard words there, `Brillig' means four o'clock in the afternoon — the time when you begin broiling things for dinner."
"That'll do very well," said Alice: "and "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."
"I see it now," Alice remarked thoughtfully: "and what are toves?
"Well, 'toves' are something like badgers — they're something like lizards — and they're something like corkscrews."
"They must be very curious creatures."
[2] Welsh seems to have borrowed the English word blog, plural blogiau.
[3] Still, I suppose I should be grateful that the protecting la belle langue française against all kinds of barbarous inroads. Now I know the difference between un mouchard and my elbow.
Posted by jim at May 6, 2003 10:44 AM