Portmanteau Words

A word formed by combining, blending the sounds and meanings of two other words is one of the artistic and creative ways to develop the language. The reasons? to make fun, to describe a new reality, to express dual ideas etc.
Although a portmanteau word's meaning is different from the meaning of each of the words it combines, its new meaning relates to each of the combined words, and it expresses something new and different about them.
Don't confuse it with compound words which do not involve just parts of the stems of the blended words but the complete ones joined together ( earrings- ear+rings)
They are also called "centaur words" or "blends"

A portmanteau word was first described by Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass ( 1871) , when he explains the meaning of the unusual words in the poem Jabberwocky .This is a case of “two meanings packed up into one word.” (inspired by the French word for a suitcase with two opposite compartments)  

Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first ... if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

They refer to different topics or uses and some become outdated easily. Below you can see some examples and topics.

 ENTERTAINMENT
- BIOPIC ( biography+ picture) a film about someone's biography
- ANIMATRIX ( Anime+ Matrix)
- TELEVANGELIST ( television+evangelist) an evangelist priest on TV
- NEWSCAST ( news+ broadcast)
- COSPLAY ( costume+ play)  a costume that resembles a character from fiction/ cartoons
- DOCUDRAMA (documental+drama)
- SITCOM (situation+comedy)
- TELETHON ( telephone/ television marathon) 
 
COOKING  

- BRUNCH ( breakfast + lunch)
- CHEESEBURGER 
- FRAPPUCCINO ( frappé+ cappuccino)
- HAMWICH ( ham+sandwich) 

 PEOPLE
- SCREENAGER ( screen+teenager) an adolescent obsessed with screen entertainment
- FRENEMY( friend+ enemy) a supposed friend but fake. 
- WORKAHOLIC  addicted to work
- SHOPAHOLIC  addicted to shops 

- BANKSTER ( banker+ ganster) dishonest and predatory banker
- FEMINAZI ( feminist+ nazi) extreme militant feminist
- CELESBIAN ( celebrity+lesbian)
- HASBIAN ( has been a lesbian) 
Sometimes you find pormanteau words refering to couples
- BILLARY ( Bill and Hillary Clinton)
- BRANGELINA ( Brad Pitt+ Angelina Jolly)
- MERKOZY ( Angela Merkel+ Sarkozy) 
 
LANGUAGES
- SPANGLISH ( Spanish+ English)
- CHINGLISH ( Chinese+ English)
- FRANGLAIS ( French + English)  

PLACES

- MOTEL ( motor+ hotel)
- OXBRIDGE ( Oxford and Cambridge)
- LOOBRARY ( loo+library) 
- FLOORDROBE ( scattered clothes on the floor of a teenager's room mainly),  does it ring a bell to you? 
 
SEX
- SEXTING ( sex+texting)
-  SEXPLOITATION ( sex+ exploitation)
- SEXPERT ( sex+ expert)
- SMIRLING ( smoke+ flirting) people meeting outside to smoke and discovering that they have  more things  in common 
 
TECHNOLOGY
- CAMCORDER ( camera+ recorder) 
- CHUNNEL ( channel+ tunnel)  
- AVIONICS ( viation+ electronics)
- MOPED ( motor+pedal)
- SKYJACK ( sky+ hijack)  
 
INTERNET/COMPUTING

 - BIT ( binary+ digit)
- WEBINAR ( web+ seminar) a lesson on the web
- INTERNET ( international+ network)
-  EMOTICON ( emotion+ icon)
- MALWARE ( malicious+ software)
- SKYPE ( sky+ peer to peer)
- PODCAST ( ipod+ broadcast)     

CLOTHES
- JEGGINGS ( jeans+ leggings)
 
HYBRID ANIMALS

Used in tales and cartoons

- GRUFFALO ( grizzli bear+ buffalo)
- LIGER / TIGON ( lion + female tiger)
- BEEFALO  ( cow + buffalo)  




ADJECTIVES

- BODYLICIOUS (body+ delicious) something extremely pleasant  ( Thanks to Beyonce)
- HANGRY a state of anger caused by lack of food
- METROSEXUAL ( metropolitan+  heterosexual) a man who appears to be concerned about 1. aesthetics
- CHILLAXING ( chill+ relaxing)  calm, relaxing 
-  FANTABULOUS ( fantastic+ fabulous)

  Portmanteau words have been used a lot by writers (Dickens, James Joyce) and remember that many of the brand names are also blended words

PALMOLIVE ( palm+ olive)
MICROSOFT ( microcomputer+ software)
MEDICARE ( medical +care)

EXERCISES

Now that you know a lot about blended words, get ready to practise and create them 

1.  CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE A WORKSHEET,  download it, complete it  and give it to your teacher. 

2.  LOOK FOR FIVE PORTMANTEAU WORDS AND CREATE THREE ON YOUR OWN

Conditionals

Working with CONDITIONALS

We study conditionals in class doing lots of activities, translating, watching presentations and so on, but here you have some activities to enjoy them a bit.
Anyway, if you are interested, you can see my Prezi presentation clicking here.

The top ten Conditionals Song Lyrics

Complete the sentences
If I never had a cent...
If it hadn't been for ......

If my true love was gone....
If I get locked up tonight...
If I can't have you.....
If you go...
If you don't know me by now....
If I knew you were coming....
If I were a boy...
If you leave me now...

  More songs using conditionals 

Conditionals with the Big Bang Theory 

 If you like music, here you have a list of songs to learn and enjoy

Songs for learning 1st conditional	Frank Sinatra / If You Go Away (lyrics) Simply Red / If You Don't Know Me By Now (lyrics) Cyndi Lauper / Time After Time (lyrics) Beautiful South / I'll Sail This Ship Alone (lyrics)
Songs for learning 2nd conditional	Red Hot Chili Peppers / If (lyrics) Eric Clapton / Tears In Heaven (lyrics) Enrique Iglesias / Hero (lyrics) The Beatles / If I fell (lyrics) The Beatles / With A Little Help From My Friends (lyrics) Beyonce Knowles / If I Were A Boy (lyrics) Gwen Stefani / Rich Girl (lyrics) Barenaked Ladies / If I Had $1,000,000 (lyrics) Hoobastank / If I Were You (lyrics) Joan Osborne / One Of Us (lyrics) Norah Jones / Painter Song ABBA / Money Money Money (lyrics) Johnny Cash / If I Were A Carpenter (lyrics)
Songs for learning 3rd conditional	Lisa Stansfield / Change (lyrics) Gloria Gaynor / I Will Survive (lyrics)

Taken from: http://www.tefltunes.com

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 150th Anniversary

‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’  was first published 1865 and its sequel ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There’  in 1871. It was published three years after Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat with the three young daughters of Henry Liddell (the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church). One of them, Alice Liddell, was his closest friend and he wrote it to amuse her. 

The English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote it under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol. He was a writer, Photographer, talented Mathematician, Logician and Anglican Deacon. He suffered from a stammer and was a little deaf in his right ear, he also had arthritis and suffered from migraines . All these problems affected his life and were reflected in his book. 

 

It is said that he appears in Alice in Wonderland as the dodo (Due to his stammer he pronounced his name as “Do Dodgson”). It’s probable that to relieve his terrible migraines he took Laudanum, a medicine ( Opium, Saffon, white wine) which caused hallucinogenic visions. Drugs and psychedelic visions appear a lot in Alice: Alice takes a mushroom which makes her grow or decrease, this  shows  a neurologic  disordered called micropsia and macropsia or Alice in Wonderland Syndrome often caused by drug consumption. We can also see the Caterpillar smoking a hookah which could be opium, which was legal in Victorian times. 

I have explained how Dodgson ‘s life is shown in the book but Alice in Wonderland has lots of interesting facts to comment on:

- We can see an eccentric hatter ( usually called The Mad Hatter) In the XIX century the hat makers suffered from a common disease ( madness) caused by mercury poisoning, mercury was used to cure the felt in the hats. That’s where the phrase “ as mad as a hatter” comes from.

- Carroll had a preference for little girls. He made friends with many of them and even photographed them nude on beaches. This has been controversial even when he was living. He considered the girls’ body as the most beautiful and a work of art. Alice Liddell's parents didn’t let him be near their daughter at the end. 

- Carroll researched natural history for the animals presented in the book, and then had the book examined by other children. He added his own illustrations but the published illustrations were by John Tenniel .

- The Lizard may be a play on the name of British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli

- Since Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, there are many references and mathematical concepts in this story: the concept of “limits”, “inverse relationship” or “combinatorics problems”

- There are lots of references to other languages like French and Latin which girls studied at that time.

- The cards painting the roses red or white refer to the War of the Roses between  the Lancaster ( red) and the York ( white)

- Lots of psychological references:  Getting into the unconscious ( when Alice falls down the rabbit hole), anxiety and self-demanding ( the white rabbit is always in a hurry) , Intolerance (the Queen of Hearts)

This book has influenced other authors and has inspired films, comics, cartoons, opera, ballet and musical. 

After reading all the previous information, get ready to answer The Following quesions

If you are interested, go to this site and find more activities and resources: Lewis Carrrol Resources

T S Eliot's Anniversary

On January 4th we remembered T S Eliot's 50th Death Anniversary.

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was an American poet, essayist, publisher, playwright and literary and social critic. At the age of 25 he emigrated to England and renounced his American citizenship in 1939. 

He considered himself "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic  in religion"

 

He was a representative of the Modernism writing masterpieces such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ( 1927, full of Symbolism and with Dante's influence ) "The Waste Land" (1922, The poem is often read as a representation of the disillusionment of the post-war generation,  a poetic counterpart to a novel published in the same year, James Joyce's Ulysses)  or "Ash Wednesday" (1927,  Eliot's "conversion poem" showing his spiritual concerns and his new Christian faith). He often wrote in blank verse and his poetry showed a revolution in his age.

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these.”
― T.S. Eliot

His seven plays are also well known "Murder at the Cathedral", "The Cocktail Party", "Family Reunion" all of them full of poetry and influenced by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers. 

He was Ezra Pound's friend and had a great influence on other writers such as Virginia Woolf and others. 

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.  

Here you can read some quotations from his poems

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land 

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Others  

In the following video you can listen to a short biography by the BBC

LOVE ENGLISH AWARDS 2015

 I'm pleased to communicate that Bites and Bits of English has been nominated for the Love English Awards 2014 organised by Macmillan Dictionary!

I'm so honoured that I can only say thank you to all those who considered it worthy to be there. 

If you like it and feel like voting for it, you can do it in  Macmillan Dictionary site or clicking on the badge on the right.  Voting starts on 13 January 2015. you will also know about other interesting blogs around the world. 

Thank you so much to all of you who nominated my blog.

STEREOTYPES

Who wants to be a volunteer?

A parody of the aid campaigns for Africa, full of stereotypes to discuss about. 

Now you have the opportunity to save Africa and become a volunteer. Feed the people, teach how to play football, take a selfie with a native and answer an easy question. Go!

This is a series of parodies created by The Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund http://www.saih.no  with funding from The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) in order to change the way fundraising campaigns are communicating issues of poverty and development. You can see the familiar stereotypes of how the African continent tends to be portrayed or the image of the “white hero" who does a favour and saves the poor native.

More videos like these could be seen in  11 of the best aid parodies by the Guardian.
I highlight : Let's save Africa- Go wrong!
                  Tims
                  and the band aid Africa for Norway 

 For more stereotypes about he African culture it's advisable you see a TED talk by Chimawanda Adichie " The dangers of a single story" and do the worksheet about it in my website

Keep calm and........

The story of the poster "Keep Calm and Carry on"

 You may have found posters like this with different messages all around. This has become an icon of the 21st century, but its origin dates back to war times.

COMPLETE THE BLANKS WITH INFORMATION FROM THE VIDEO.

In the spring of ________, in World War II time, the British Government commissioned ____ propaganda posters which had to be uniform and difficult to ____________ by Germans.  They used _______ colours and the crown of king ______________

The last poster “Keep Calm and Carry on” was never __________ or _________ by the public.

_____ years later a copy of the poster was found  by ________________ in _______________.

It has become an icon of 21st century because it is __________, ____________ and warmhearted, it inspires confidence in difficult times