Archive for the ‘Portmanteaus’ Category
March 17, 2025
☘️ ☘️ ☘️ three shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day
On the WaynoBlog for 3/15/25, W commented on the Bizarro cartoon of his that I reported on in my posting yesterday, “Nosferatu en pointe”:
I recently saw another vampire cartoon with the caption NOSFERATUTU. Worse, it was done by a good friend, Teresa Roberts Logan, who has an excellent cartoon feature called Laughing Redhead. Worse still, she did her comic in 2021! At least the two aren’t precisely the same…
Fortunately, she was very understanding about this type of occurrence, which happens to all of us from both directions. It’s still embarrassing, though!
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Posted in Events and occasions, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Puns | Leave a Comment »
March 16, 2025
After six days of foolishness, back on 1/19, in my posting “Hats off to vampires!”, Bizarro produced what I supposed to be the last of the Waynoratu Nosferamanteaus. But yesterday (3/15), two months later, the vampire arose once more, dancing across the stage of our imagination:
I suppose this was irresistible, but the TU of Nosferatu beckons far too seductively (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page)
We might now get
Nosferatuber, Nosferatumor, Nosferatush, Nosferatutor, Nosferatutti-fruitti, …
NosferaTurin, NosferaTuring, NosferaTurkey, NosferaTuscany, NosferaTutsi, …
And endless more, streaming out the door and flying bat-like towards the moon.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Puns | Leave a Comment »
February 1, 2025
🐇 🐇 🐇 rabbit rabbit rabbit to welcome the month of February, the month of Lincoln Darwin Day and of Valentine’s Day (this year, Mardi Gras doesn’t come until early in March)
It’s Rabbit Day, and what happens to be at the top of my posting queue has nothing to do with rabbits; it’s a Bizarro cartoon (from yesterday, 1/31) with a tasty culinary artmanteau:
(#1) The portmanteau Michelancho = Michelangelo (the 16th-century Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarotti, painter of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome) + ancho (the dried poblano chili / chile pepper) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)
(an alternative culinary artmanteau: (Michelangelo) Anchorotti = ancho + Buonarotti)
(plus, I note that #1 is about Michelangelo the Ancho Honcho, the Man of La Mancho, also one of the lesser-known film Manchowiczes, etc.)
Now some brief notes on anchos, and then a surprise finale in which today’s rabbits get cooked with anchos, in the triumph of culinary artistry conejo en adobo with red chiles, which you can think of as Rabbit Michelancho.
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Posted in Art, Events and occasions, Language and animals, Language and food, Language and plants, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Puns, Spanish | 4 Comments »
January 19, 2025
For yesterday, 1/18, in Bizarro, the 6th and I suppose last Waynoratu Nosferamanteau:
The male nosferatu (holding a wineglass of what is presumably blood, and chatting with his young female companion at some sort of vampiric meet-and-greet) seems to be wearing a Canadian toque (= tuque), with pom-pom, to warm his head during the cold dark nights in his coffin (yes, it’s very silly) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)
The nosferamanteau is Nosferatoque = Nosferatu + toque. As for the hat, from NOAD:
noun toque: [a] a woman’s small hat, typically having a narrow, closely turned-up brim. [b] historical a small cap or bonnet having a narrow brim or no brim. [c] Canadian a close-fitting knitted hat, often with a tassel or pom-pom on the crown. [variant of tuque] [d] a tall white hat with a full pouched crown, worn by chefs.
(The heart tattoo with A B O in it, for the blood types A B AB and O, is a nice touch.)
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Posted in Clothing, Events and occasions, Hats, Holidays, Linguistics in the comics, My life, People, Portmanteaus, Puns | 3 Comments »
January 17, 2025
Very briefly: in entry 5 in the Waynoratu Nosferamanteau marathon, today, two anti-establishment vampires greet one another:
A 1960s-style hippie on the right (peace symbol, long hair, headband, etc.), a 1970s-style Johnny Rotten punk rocker on the left (anarchist symbol, spiky hair, studded collar. etc.)
Meanwhile, the punmanteau is a complex one: Johnny Rotten wrapped around nosfer– (representing Nosferatu)
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Posted in Clothing, Identities, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Portmanteaus, Puns, Signs and symbols, Social life | Leave a Comment »
January 16, 2025
Continuing Bizarro‘s theme from Monday through Wednesday, today’s Waynoratu Nosferamanteau — a Wayno punmanteau based on the film title Nosferatu — examines Transylvanian dentitions:
(#1) In the tradition of Nosferattoo, Nosferachoo, and Nosferatoon, a Nosferatooth X-ray; I must say that that’s a truly splendid vampiric X-ray (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page)
(I was going to wait to see what Friday and Saturday would bring us on Bizarro before posting this strip, but it brings up an issue in visual symbolism, manifested in Wayno’s adaptation of the two-serpent caduceus (surmounting a tooth) to serve as a symbol of dentistry.)
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Posted in Jokes, Language and medicine, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Logos, Movies and tv, Portmanteaus, Puns, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »
January 15, 2025
It’s not only the worst week of the year (as I detailed in a posting yesterday), but in the Bizarro cartoon world, Wayno has made it Nosferatu Punmanteau Week (Nosferamanteau Week, for short), exploiting the success of the 2024 movie to commit a series of punmanteaus (puns based on a portmanteau, presented visually as well as linguistically — these are, after all, cartoons) of a special, self-incorporating, type: puns on the model Nosferatu that are portmanteaus of Nosferatu + W, where W is, so far this week : tattoo (in Nosferattoo), achoo (in Nosferachoo), and cartoon (in Nosferatoon). The Waynoratu Nosferamanteaus might well continue through the week. Wayno could even specialize in creature Nosferamanteaus, like the crested parrot Nosferacatoo and the bare-bottomed monkey Nosferaboon; we might even get a whole zoo.
While we wait: about the movie; about the three strips so far; and earlier punmanteau postings of mine.
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Posted in AI, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Portmanteaus | 2 Comments »
December 18, 2024
For today’s Bizarro, a portmanteau title — Doctor Who + The Who = Doctor The Who [with the overlapping material underlined] — for a hybrid cartoon character, who is simultaneously Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor Who and also the leaping, jumping Pete Townshend of the rock band The Who:
(#1) Wayno’s character is, in appearance and dress, Baker’s Doctor Who; but this character is also, in action, Townshend’s hyperactive guitarist in The Who (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)
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Posted in Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Music, Pop culture, Portmanteaus, Puns | 3 Comments »
November 24, 2024
(There will be mentions — in vernacular but not actually vulgar terms — of male-male sexual practices that some will find icky, so this posting will not be to everyone’s taste; and it might stretch some kids’ horizons a bit, so a gentle warning)
From back on 10/30, e-mail from Gadi Niram, with a video gift for me, saying: I found this video (and the young man in it) to be quite a pleasant diversion:
(#1) Screen shot from the video, which you can view here
A shirtless young man in ripped denim shorts playing the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No.2) on a fancy grand piano (with a mirrored fallboard, as in the finest piano lounges). alongside the pool at at what looks like a tropical oceanside resort. (For a bit of extra sexiness, those shorts are down far enough in the back to expose the waistband of his black Calvins; here the girls and the gay boys swoon.)
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Posted in Back formation, Compounds, Context, Conversion, Derivation, Language and the body, Language of medicine, Lexical semantics, Morphology, Music, Portmanteaus, Technical and ordinary language | 4 Comments »
November 15, 2024
From Season Devereux this morning, this excellent image on Threads, from the poster linguisticdiscovery:
Two flying entities, the helicopter and the pterodactyl, are about to hybridize, to merge into a single thing, which will then obviously be denoted by the portmanteau helicopterodactyl — Is it a plane? (not exactly, though it’s a kind of aircraft) Is it a bird? (not exactly, though it has wings) It’s Superfly!
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Posted in Abbreviation, Compounds, Portmanteaus | 3 Comments »
