Or do you have one of your own?

Frankenwords, or portmanteau words to give them their technical name, are one of the 13 ways we make up new words. Like labradoodle, stagflation, frenemy and smog, they’re created by taking a word and replacing part of it with the whole or part of another word.

The best ones, according to people who know these things, are easily understandable, fun and natural-sounding.

Those less likely to catch on, as Guardian columnist Andy Bole warns, include ones that set the wrong tone (e.g. too flippant or childish), are redundant (a word that means the same thing already exists) or are just too icky (e.g. offensive or of questionable taste).

Having hopefully side-stepped those particular language potholes (another Frankenword, if I’m not mistaken 😁), here are some attempts of my own:

• Digidite – someone who refuses to embrace the Internet
• Picasco – an embarrassingly awful drawing (and my personal favourite of the four here)
• Whinee – a person employed as a wine critic
• Eurogenous zone – an area where people who enjoy close contact with Europeans live

Can you do better? Let me know. Or click here to see what other people came up with when I shared this post on LinkedIn.

Photo courtesy of Freepik.