Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Playful portmanteauing is everywhere [so is verbing]. Here, for example, from Daniel Clowes’s “Wilson in Day 16,412” comic strip in the March 15 New Yorker: sitting at a cafe table on the street, Wilson is approached by a young man seeking signatures and donations for a “save the planet” cause. Afterwards, Wilson remarks to a guy at next table:

You know what my ex used to call those guys?  “Clippies.”  Get it?  Clipboard plus hippie.

And then there’s Hilary Price in Rhymes With Orange. A few days ago came nightmarathon. And now today:

This entry was posted on March 14, 2010 at 8:48 am and is filed under Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.