More on the -ottles

Following up on his first posting on World Wide Words on -ottle words (TOTTLE and NOTTLE, based on BOTTLE) — reported on in this blog here — Michael Quinion added a posting today about further investigations. Three things:

– he added the portmanteau HOTTLE, which I’d noted in my posting;

– he added the portmanteau FOTTLE (folding + bottle), supplied by another reader;

– and he retracted NOTTLE, which appears to be a ghost word, the result of a misprint.

The full entertaining story (“Notta Lotta Notta”), with illustrations, is on his blog, here.

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