The Art of the Portmanteau: 50 Modern Word Mashups in Pop Culture

This Art/Design list is in fact, more of a Language

Arts list. While some may disagree with this concept based solely on the

fear that it is not a visual enough topic for such a medium as a 50

List gallery, we offer you this: language is still an art, if used

properly. Also, if you promise to click through, there will be funny pictures and jokes so you won’t

get bored. Welcome

to ever-expanding universe of the English portmanteau. What the

hell is a portmanteau, you ask? Good question.

A portmanteau is two words smushed together to make a new word that combines the meaning of the original two. Think “brunch” or “fucktard.” These frankenwords (that’s one right there) give you more meaning with less wordz! It’s a little like New Speak,

but way better suited to comedy and debasement. This is just a guesstimate

(another one), but there are way more than 50 good ones so add your own

in the comments, dear readers. We promise, less words from here on out.

NOTE:

We’re not even going to dignify celebrity name mashups or NYC

neighborhoods that a realtor shat out with a place on the list because

they’re that terrible. Not that you could or should call this a

dignified list. Click on for 50 great portmanteaus that have changed the way we live life in the modern world.

What Makes Up the Name: web + seminar

This is a prime example of portmanteaus gone awry. It’s just a video with someone explaining something that no one wanted to actually sit in a room and listen to so the speaker tries to give it gravitas by giving it a portmanteau name. Also, by saying web instead of Internet it makes us think you use dial-up still and combining that with a seminar makes us so bored we’re already looking at porn instead of paying attention. The only good thing about a webinar is that you don’t have to wear clothes to watch it. That didn’t take long, we’re only on the first one and we’re already naked, watching porn. Oh, Internet.

Origin: Once the web got powerful enough to realistically stream video and simultaneous chats in the mid aughts, the webinar was the logical next step for educators moving in to the digital age. The original coinage was probably around 2004 or 2005, but it really made a splash in usage and news stories in 2007. By 2008 it was widely reviled.

What Makes Up the Name: porn + tornado

Then your roommate walks in and you’re all, “Oh, hey,” falling out of your chair, ass rubbing everywhere as you trip over your pants that have now become the ankle chains they give maximum security inmates as your roommate tries to avert his eyes and asks if you're sitting bare-ass in his “favorite leather rolly chair” and you, overcome with the vision of poo streaks and shame, cover your member with one hand and reach up with the other to close the cascading windows of porn pop-ups that have turned your monitor into one big, moaning fleshy pixel orgy, and all you can do is smile and ask him how work was. That’s getting caught in a pornado, class four: uncontrollable porn spam windows take over your screen at a highly inopportune time. You should see a class five.

Origin: It was first posted on the Urban Dictionary in 2004, so who knows. It probably appeared about the same time browsers started getting jacked up by porn sites in the 90s.

What Makes Up the Name: blog + celebrity

Okay, now that we have your attention, we can move on. A blogebrity is usually either a laid off journalist turned food blogger, or an alternately sycophantic and maniacal starfucker depending on what gets them more attention, or a person with a brilliant unique opinion and voice that didn’t feel like waiting in line. A blogebrity is just someone who got popular and/or famous via a blog. Blog (web + log) is also portmanteau, but we’re hoping we don’t have to explain that one to you.

Origin: While the first person to become a true blogebrity (if that’s even possible) probably emerged as early as 2003, by 2006 there was a blog called blogebrity.com that blogged a list of the Top 10 Blogebrities of 2006; blog. That sentence makes us want to kill ourselves.

See Also: blogosphere

What Makes Up the Name: digital + literati

There are two branches of this elite digital social class, the academic & literary digerati, and the industrialist digerati (Zuckerburg & Jobs). Like the blogebrity, they both make their living off the digital world, but one type lives on the front lines and writes theories about it while the other type owns huge yachts.

Origin: A early addition to the digital repertoire, the first digerati usage we could find was from the New York Times in 1992.

See Also: gliterati, twitterati, and be thankful you cannot make a portmanteau of all of them because your online thesaurus would explode

What Makes Up the Name: web + broadcast

Listen, in five years, broadcast and webcast will all be the same thing so enjoy this one while you still can. Webcast!

Origin: According to the always reliable* wikipedia, "Webcasting was first publicly described and presented by Brian Raila of GTE Laboratories at InterTainment '89, held in New York City, USA." So take that for what it's worth, but people didn't really start to stream content online until the mid to late 90s, and it wasn't really any good until the early 2000s.

*not always reliable

See Also: webisode, netcast, podcast

What Makes Up the Name: Twitter + rant

With Twitter came a whole bunch of neologisms with the prefix tw- that make everything your're saying sound cool and plugged-in come across like you're an adorable 7 year old with overalls and a speech impediment. Twitter also birthed a million misguided, unimportant twants about some poor guy who put too much guac on a burrito and got called by a convicted prostitute or something.

Origin: Figured we'd go with the Twittionary (who knew that pormanteau even existed?) on this one. The entry was posted in late 2009.

See Also: tweeps (just never fucking say it)

What Makes Up the Name: net + etiquette

Please don't twant on Twitter, show some nettiquette. See? See how I used that in a sentence? Doesn't it make you want to slap my face through the computer? I told you these things can be dangerous, but the idea behind this one is sound. When people stop looking at each other and interacting in person, and instead send out thoughtless digital grenades of information we have a tendency to miss a lot of the social cues that engender a little pathos. In short, it's easy to be a dick online so you should try to think before you forward me that awesome list of racist jokes, uncle Brian. Dick.

Origin: Netiquette was born out of online message boards in the early 1990s and first used in the New York Times in 1992 in an article by William Grimes.

What Makes Up the Name: between + teen

One of the biggest groups of netiquette violators are tweens, those painted & Biebered-up not-quite-teenagers who have all of the attitude and a fraction of the hormones of the elders they emulate. They also seem to have more buying power than South Korea, so everyone is treating them like gold and letting them do whatever they want, which in 15 years is going to turn out great for America.

Origin: We found an advertising reference to tweens from a 1988 NYT piece suggesting it's been a marketing demo for a lot longer than it's been in the public lexicon.

What Makes Up the Name: sex + texting

Tweens also love sexting each other and now everyone is trying to figure out if that's illegal. We're not sure where sending sexy and/nude phone pics of yourself to other people fits in with the whole netiquette thing, but it doesn't seem like a very good idea to us unless you're looking to limit your career options, break into porn, or are Brett Favre.

Origin: Allegedly, the UK's Sunday Morning Telegraph Magazine published a piece using this term in 2005, but the U.S. case that made it a major cause for parental concern was Marissa Miller in 2009.

What Makes Up the Name: sex + escapade

The sexting thing probably wasn't Favre's only indulgence. Like most NFL ballers he probably had his fair share of sexcapades. It's kind of lame one, but what can we say, people love sex and the internet and we need the traffic. I can't help but wonder though, what if there was a combination of sex and icecapades? I think that could be a money maker at some pervy Scandinavian Ice Hotel—call me questionable ice hotel magnates!

Origin: This one is pretty obvious and it sounds fun, so it probably came to being a long, long time ago. The first NYT usage we found was from 1983.

What Makes Up the Name: sex + exile

So now your roommate gets back at you with the old scrunchie on the doorknob trick to let you know you're sexiled from your apartment. But it's a big apartment. What could he be doing in there? You did ruin his chair, but still. And why does he have so many scrunchies? It's best you just go to the laundromat for a few hours and try not to think about it. You owe him one.

Origin: It began in college dorms definitely before 2000, but exactly when and where, who knows.

What Makes Up the Name: voluptuous + lumpy or voluminous + sumptuous

Sometimes portmanteaus happen by accident when your roommate is trying to say "voluptuous" and sound all smart-in-the-brain and then he mixes a "lump" in there: "volumptuous". The problem with these inadvertent ones is that no one really knows what they mean. Is it a lumpy voluptuousness? A massive luxuriousness? Are we talking about a woman or a couch or are you just stupid? Be careful with this one, because it often just means "fat" so you should make sure they sext you a picture first.

Origin: The Urban Dictionary lists it's first posting in March 2006, but some dumbass definitely said it before that.

What Makes Up the Name: bro + romance

A bromance is when two grown-ass men share a special affinity, a bond that makes them almost want to make out, but not quite, because they're still scared of being called gay, because they're secretly gay, so they over compensate with rampant homophobia, which manifests itself with lots of jokes about homos and gays to each other so the other on doesn't think they're gay which they already know anyway. Or, it's just two guys who are way into each other and that's totally fine. Unless it starts to piss off your lady. It's also why this fight with your roommate won't last, so relax.

Origin: Listed in the NYT as a 2007 Buzz Word, but in usage before that time among bros and the bros who love them, bro.

See Also: broner, brodeo and The Onion's ultimate all things bro

What Makes Up the Name: friend + enemy

Having frenemies is stupid. Have enemies, have friends, but who needs frenemies when you can just say "colleagues" like every one else. Sorry, we don't mean that that happens at Complex, we're just cranky. It's time to eat something.

Origin: Again, according to Wikipedia, it was first used as early as 1953, but it's become much more popular since the early aughts to describe catty politcking on reality shows.

What Makes Up the Name: hungry + angry

Not to be confused with hypoglycemia, hangry is when you wait too long to eat lunch and then your start getting snippy and irrational at the office. We're only at 36? This is exhausting. Let's segway. After all that sex & hate talk, we're hangry for some food portmanteaus...

Origin: Urban Dictionary says 2005 for first listing, but we say about 40,000 years ago some hangry being grunted it's equivalent.

What Makes Up the Name: breakfast + lunch

We already mentioned this one, but it's a cornerstone of the word class and to leave it out would be criminal. If you don't know what brunch is you're probably a cowboy or a communist so... just so. Whatever. Moving along...

Origin: Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists the first usage as 1896.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: spoon + fork

Thank God for this. He invented the spoon fork combo utensil, you know. It's in the Bible. It was the 3rd day, after dinosaurs, but before genocide. Anyway, it's so much more advanced than chopsticks, and it's guaranteed to blow your Japanese exchange student's mind.

Origin: Sporks have been manufactured since the 1800s, but the term was not coined until the early 20th century according to this book.

See Also: the less used and mysterious, and certainly more dangerous, knork

What Makes Up the Name: croissant + sandwich

Pretty sure this one is french. Not sure what it means.

Origin: The Crossain'Wich was introduced by Burger King in 1983.

What Makes Up the Name: bacon + terminator

Bacon is like the Terminator of food. Everyone likes it, even though it will kill you, run for governor, win, and then tell you about the baby 10 years later. Even though Wendy’s has this one locked down, we think you can use it for any dish that has a lot of bacon in it, which judging buy the trends, will be more and more dishes until the life expectancy in this country hits 30.

Origin: Wendy's introduced the Baconator in 2007, but bacon has been delicious and killing people since forever.

See Also: baconalia (Denny's)

What Makes Up the Name: chip + explosion

This could be any word that ends in 'p' followed by -plosion and it just means 'a lot of it.' Poplosion, naplosion, claplosion, niplosion, lamplosion. Eh. But what are you going to do with a ton of lamps exploding all over the place? Probably nothing unless you’re at MoMA. Anyway, we’re talking about food, so chiplosion it is. NEXT.

Origin: I kind of made this one up as a segway in 2011, but it's been happening since chip bags have been popping open and spilling chips everywhere, so probably the 1950s or 60s.

What Makes Up the Name: turkey + chicken + duck

This one is also lethal and probably the most exotic food portmanteau out there due to its innovative use of three (count 'em three) words: turkey, duck and chicken. Although they combine to form a dish more than a new word, we're going to give it to turducken, just because we approve of stuffing things within things within things and then eating the resulting thing (see: also tacodillarito). But still, there's one question that remains: "Mommy, where do turduckens come from?"

Origin: From Wikipedia, but this time it's relatively well-cited: "Roasts of nested birds or other animals have been documented for centuries. The Yorkshire Christmas pie, an English dish served in the 18th century, consists of five different birds either layered or nested, and baked in a standing crust.[1][2][3]." But Hebert's Specialty Meats in Lousiana has been commercially producing turduckens since 1985, so probably before that.

What Makes Up the Name: labradore + poodle

This one's obvious. They've been making dog mashups forever, but did you know that there are more, betterer animal portmanteaus? It' true.

Origin: According to the "ultimate labradoodle community," the breed came about in 1988 by an Aussie breeder named Wally Cochran.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: zebra + donkey

See? Told you. That's the other good thing about these. I don't have to explain it or tell jokes because what you see is what you get. You get zonkey. Say it with me now.

Origin: Charles Darwin, yes, the Charles Darwin mentioned several zebroid crosses in his book Origin of the Species (maybe you've heard of it?) in 1859, but the first zonkey came to be in 2005.

What Makes Up the Name: polar + grizzly (bear)

It's lonely in the arctic when your habitat is shrinking. Weird things start happening.

Origin: The first grolar bear was discovered and named in 2006.

See Also: "nanulak", taken from the Inuit names for polar bear (nanuk) and grizzly bear (aklak). See, you learned something!

What Makes Up the Name: lion + tiger

This is why the continents moved apart. Get these things away from each other, for chrissake. Their offspring are huge! Literally. Ligers are prone to a genetic phenomenon called gigantism. Are you crazy, lady? Don't encourage them!

Origin: Ligers have been around since the 19th Century according to Wikipedia. So maybe, maybe not.

See Also: beefalo, wallaroo, geep, cama

What Makes Up the Name: jack rabbit + antelope

There are some fictional animal combos too. The taxidermied jackalope always seem to show up in places where people get drunk, have problems with authority, and listen to Jimmy Buffet... or maybe that's just my living room.

Origin: The term for the legendary beast predates a 1977 NYT story. In it, it's claimed that the term and myth was invented in 1934 by two Wyoming brothers.

What Makes Up the Name: shark + octopus

Not even close to real, but such a cool word. Sharktopus. Don't bother seeing the movie, by the way. Speaking of movies...

Origin: The 2010 movie Sharktopus was the beginning and probably the end of this word.

What Makes Up the Name: romantic + comedy

When you only have one minute to pitch an idea to a bunch of executives, you don't have time to use a bunch of words so you need to distill your movie idea into a concise combination of pre-existing formulas. "It's a romcom!" See? That one saves you four syllables.

Origin: This one is hard to determine, but it's definitely been in use since 2003 and almost certainly earlier, particularly inside the entertainment industry.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: mom + entrepreneur

If you really wanted to pitch a good movie, you could do one about a single, laid off digerati internet momtrepreneur who starts her own business while raising her toddler and makes a facebook app that finds her the man of her dreams and who was really the sperm donor for the baby she had because she was too busy working to find the man of her dreams! Hooof, that was a long sentence. Call me, Hollywood.

Origin: The earliest usage we could find was 2007, but who knows what bored stay-at-home mom thought it up before that.

What Makes Up the Name: advertising + editorial

You know those special sections in magazines that look kind of like the editorial content but are about how great this Ford Focus' stereo is and it seems weird that they're talking about it for two pages? Well, that's not content, that's an ad. Or more accurately, it is ad sales' bevloed, advertorial.

Origin: The NYT mentions the term in a 1979 piece noting US News and World Report's upcoming Nov. 19 issue.

What Makes Up the Name: bad + advertising

There can be good advertorial, but then there can also be plain old badvertising. It's usually late at night and for some fitness machine or cleaning product, but sometimes it's simpler than that...

Origin: Pretty much since the advent of modern advertising we imagine. Those guys are creative with word play anyway.

What Makes Up the Name: fucking + ugly

Sometimes it's just fugly. It happens to advertising as well as to people, dogs, babies it just happens so you should be aware.

Origin: Online Entymology Dicitonary says it was in use by 1997.

What Makes Up the Name: chronic + drunk or crazy + drunk or crack + drunk

Take your pick, you can all get crunk how ever you want. This one is a prime example of how you can take two words, put them together and it takes on the combined characteristics of the original words and then you can take that new word and makes it mean nothing at all by commercializing the hell out of it and then buy a $500,000 "Crunk Ain't Dead" necklace to say that what you killed isn't dead.

Origin: Merriam-Webster has it's first known use in the year 2000.

What Makes Up the Name: crap + spectacular

Another word for that last product mentioned and the general situation surrounding energy drinks at the moment is craptacular. Fantastically bad, like most romcoms and all the Wayan's brothers movies.

Origin: The word was used by Bart Simpson in The Simpsons episode, "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" on December 21, 1997. From there it invaded middle schools and the world.

What Makes Up the Name: shit + fart

Speaking of crap, this one is usually only something you have to worry about if you're very old or very young (or a little old and very hungover). When you try to push one out just a little too hard, this will happen. Like that time on your roommate's chair.

Origin: We think the coolest grandpa in the world came up with this term in the 1870s, but we can't verify that. It also appeared in the 2004 script for Along Came Polly and has since entered the vernacular.

What Makes Up the Name: beard + weirdo

While beards have been on the rise again, there are still a handful out there that you should keep your women and children away from and those belong to the beardos. This guy sharts. No doubt about it.

Origin: According to this wordy citation, 1994, but probably in the 60s when beardos where everywhere.

What Makes Up the Name: pandemonium + delirium

I was just thinking, if I happened to be around him when he sharted, like on the subway or something, I imagine that there would be some sort of pandelirium. Everyone would just panic and scream and try to cover their faces, tearing at their eyes and noses in a vain attempt to get the horror to end and then the subway would be stop and you'd be stuck, chocking on poo air and tears and it would be the worst day of your life. Also, it would look terrible on that white suit. Like a giant piece of used toilet paper...

Origin: Pandelirium was the title of a 2006 album by The Legendary Shack Shakers. Someone definitely said it before that though.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: emotion + icon

We need to change the subject, this is getting to dark. Those smiley (or frowny or angry) things you use to help lube the social canals of netiquette are called emoticons. You can get creative with them and use some of the lesser known ones like: \m/ "rocking out", *<:o) "happy clown", [$(1)$] "money bills" and of course, ;{| "stoic one-eyed asian man with moustache".

Origin: Merriam-Webster has it appearing in 1987 and it shows up in the Style section of the NYT in 1990.

See Also: fucktard. It's unrelated, but was just a good one that wasn't going to make the list

What Makes Up the Name: non + controversy

This is a good one. It's calming after that last horror show. See, we got all worked up over a nontroversy.

Origin: After cruising the blogoshpere, it seems nontroversy has really only sprouted in the last few years going back to 2008. That's not a technical citation, but that's what we're working with on some of these.

What Makes Up the Name: smoke + fog

In the 80s everyone was losing their shit about smog and now we're just glad it's not as bad in L.A. as it is in China. Turned out to be a bit of a nontroversy, eh?

Origin: Merriam-Webster puts first usage at 1884, around the time Lewis Carroll coined the term portmanteau.

What Makes Up the Name: boredom + orgasm

So that was weak. Look, it's a long list. What can I say? Now is a good time for your boregasm, when you're so bored that the boredom climaxes and washes over you and you look over and you realize you never even really liked this list, or portmanteaus and you sneak out the back door and you never call us again.

Origin: There's blog entitled Boregasm going back to 2006 and the Urban Dictionary has it entered in 2009, so probably somewehre in the aughts.

What Makes Up the Name: midget + ninja

But then we pull you back in with minjas. Suckers. Nothing more to say about this one. Case closed.

Origin: In April 2006 the Youtube ninja, "Ask a Ninja" posted this. A movement was born.

What Makes Up the Name: black + japanese

This one is popular now, I had a friend's mom try to explain to me with a straight face that this was in fact a real, new, legit race and that it's okay to say and that part-black-part-asian people are totally into it. Wow. Well riddle me this, what do we do when the parents are black and Lebanese? I don't think one vowel is going to cut it. To be honest, these are just too easy come up with and too easy have go wrong. And it's not just with races and nationalities, but with everything, what you eat, beliefs, whatever–it's just cheap laughs. Not like poop jokes and sharting. See also, the see alsos if you want to see what I'm talking about.

Origin: It was featured in the movie Rush Hour in 1998, but was around before that... or was it, Chris Tucker?

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: trust fund + rastafarian

We really wanted to leave this one off, but it's so old school it's got to be in the 90s hall of fame with flannel, hemp necklaces and My So Called Life. And we really want to go to the 90s hall of fame. In a nutshell, a trustafarian is a white kid with dreadlocks from Connecticut who has enough money to do whatever he wants and for some reason he or she has decided that what they want is to not bathe or groom and smoke forests of ganja and pretend it's a sacrament but they still want to drive the Range Rover their parents gave them. They also sometimes wear...

Origin: First appeared in the style section of the NYT in 1993.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: jeans + shorts

I would have put jeggings as the primary on this one, but I'm so sick of jeggings. Let's get back to the classics: jorts. Now, to be clear here, some people think jorts are cut-off jean shorts and that's technically true and I own several pairs of those, but because of the negative connotation often associated with the term jorts I prefer to think of them as the baggy, below the knee, terrible kind. It's a way of protecting my fragile ego while still showing off my magnificent legs.

Origin: While jorts have been around since denim was invented, the real watershed for the term jorts came in 2010 when it first appeared in the NYT and countless other fashion commentaries, almost universally derogatorily.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: gay + radar

I'm done defending jorts, I've said my piece, but sometimes they do set of peoples' gaydar. A good example of this came up last night when I was watching a baseball game at a bar with a friend who has no gaydar. It seems that on Mondays at the establishment in question, the clientele changes a little and skews heavily male with exposed upperbody. No big deal, but I thought I'd wait and see how long it took for him to notice and it took until they put Burlesque, starring Cher and Christina Aguilera on the projector. Then his gaydar finally went off.

Origin: First appeared in the NYT in 1993 in the education section, but most Merriam-Webster says first usage was in 1982.

What Makes Up the Name: faux + mohawk

Thanks for this one, Becks. You knob.

Origin: Early aughts when David Beckham (and all European males under 30) started wearing it, but definitely by 2002 when it was cited in the NYT.

What Makes Up the Name: costume + play

We don't know why this exists, but if it's big in Asia, you better be ready for it. You just dress up like anime or video game characters and play. Where do these gigantic children come from?

Origin: Started practice began in Taiwan in the early 1990s and developed from there, but finally made the NYT in 2004.

What Makes Up the Name: snide + remark

Apparently, the godfather of the portmanteau, Lewis Carroll, came up with this one originally as a mythical beast, only to have it make become a stylistic necessity in internet journalism over a hundred years later.

Origin: The modern meaning came into usage in the early 20th century.

See Also:

What Makes Up the Name: chill + relax

This is the one most likely to makes someone want to eat your face off. And we mean that in a bad way. There is no need to combine these two words. Please, never ever use this term. Thank you and this concludes the list of Complex list of 50 Portmanteaus.

Origin: Merriam-Webster (ARE YOU SERIOUS?) says first usage was in 1999.