Германские языки | Филологический аспект №10 (126) Октябрь 2025

Радость лексиколога: телескопия в современном английском языке

Денисова Наталья Викторовна
Кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры английской филологии и лингвокультурологии Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета, РФ, г. Санкт-Петербург, n.denisova@spbu.ru
Кованова Евгения Анатольевна
Кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры английской филологии и лингвокультурологии Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета, РФ, г. Санкт-Петербург, e.kovanova@spbu.ru

Аннотация: Настоящая статья посвящена исследованию словослияния, продуктивной словообразовательной модели современного английского языка. Слова, образованные по данной модели, принадлежат стилистически маркированному и экспрессивно окрашенному пласту лексики. Благодаря концентрированной семантике и ярко выраженным лингвокреативной и аттрактивной функциям, присущим блендам, они часто используются в рекламных слоганах и цифровой коммуникации. Отмечается, что слова-бленды часто создаются для восполнения лексических лакун, при этом в широкий узус они входят редко, обслуживая языковую норму второго уровня. Многие лексикологи расходятся во мнениях относительно словообразовательного статуса блендов и лексем, образованных по схожим моделям (сложносокращенные слова и проч.), что подтверждается анализом новых словарных статей Оксфордского словаря за период с 2020 по 2024 год.
Ключевые слова: словослияние, слова-бленды, словообразование, лингвокреативность, ономастика, Оксфордский словарь английского языка, неологизмы, узус, языковая норма

Denisova Natalya Viktorovna
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of English Language and Cultural Studies, St. Petersburg State University
Kovanova Evgeniya Anatolyevna
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of English Language and Cultural Studies, St. Petersburg State University

Abstract: The present paper seeks to examine blending, a productive word-building pattern in modern English. Blends, or portmanteau words, belong to stylistically marked and expressive lexis; they are eye- and ear-catching, which makes them a perfect choice for catchlines and slogans. Blends often serve to fill in a language gap, but seldom make it to the dictionary, since words that involve word creation rather than patterned word formation are rarely viewed as belonging to language norm and the general-purpose lexicon. Most scholars disagree on the distinction between blends and other morphological categories, such as clipped compounds, which is attested by the present study of the new entries in Oxford English Dictionary during the period of 2020－2024.
Keywords: blending, portmanteau words, word-building, language creativity, onomastics, Oxford English Dictionary, neologisms, usage, language norm

The present paper aims to examine blending, which is a rather productive word-building pattern, especially across colloquial registers, often used as a device to produce catchy nonce words with a transparent inner form and meaning. Blends seem to be all around us: in the media, advertising, and the entertainment industry; however, not many of these words are added to the dictionary which can be attested by the analysis of Oxford English Dictionary’s new entries undertaken within this paper.

The phenomenon of portmanteau, or telescopic, words is inextricably linked to the name of Lewis Carroll; however, blending emerged long before the author of Jabberwocky brought it to prominence. W. Blake is known to have created   nobodaddy (← nobod[y]+daddy) in 1793, and H. Melville coined snivelization (← snivel+[civi]lization) in 1849 [1, p. 14]. An even earlier coinage can be found in Oxford English Dictionary’s 2024 list of new entries: blowsabella (← Blow[ze]+[Ro]sabella; obs., 17th cent. slang word).  Carroll’s portmanteau words serve as an effective tool of linguistic creativity and language play, which is an essential element of English nonsense poetry (cf. S. Milligan’s Book of Milliganimals with the mixed-up Hipporhinostricow and E. Lear’s Nonsense Botany with his fabulous Manypeeplia Upsidownia and Bottlephorkia Spoonifolia). Language creativity and nonsense are so deeply rooted in English literary tradition that we can find telescopic words both in adult fiction (A. Huxley’s zippicamiknicks ← zipp[er]+cami[sole]+knick[er]s;  J. Joyce’s sinduced ← sin+[se]duced and fadograph ← fad[ing]+[phot]ograph) and books for children (R. Dahl’s gloriumptious, delumptious ← glori[ous]/del[icious]+[scr]umptious, S. Butler’s Trogmanay ← tro[ll]+[H]ogmanay, J. Donaldson’s Gruffalo ← gruff+[b]uffalo). In fiction, blending functions as a gap filler, allowing to coin a concise figurative neologism that would denote an item of an imagined lore or serve as a character’s verbal schtick or semantically-loaded name.

Blending is not limited to fiction. Producing laconic, recognizable and catchy buzzwords, it has spread throughout digital communication, where it has become so popular that it has replaced binominals (Eden and Cruz, Kirk/Spock) to refer to the so-called super-couples (Brangelina ← Bra[d] Pitt+Angelina Jolie, Robsten < Rob[ert Pattinson]+[Kri]sten [Stewart]) (for more details, see: [2]). Ross and Rachel from Friends have thus become Roschel. Such blends can be coined by either journalists (Brangelina, Bennifer ← Ben Affleck+[J]ennifer Lopez), or fans (Timbertrick ← Justin Timber[lake]+Chris [Kirkpa]trick), or even celebrities themselves (Krunt ← John Kr[asinsky]+Emily [Bl]unt; Jedward ← J[ohn]+Edward, the last being a stage name of the Grimes brothers).

Particularly noteworthy is the phenomenon of shipping, which, some argue, “reveals the deep loneliness of modern life” [3]. This phenomenon is closely linked to fan fiction. Fans of a certain book saga, film franchise or TV series will often ‘ship’ a couple if they want any two fictional characters to have a romantic relationship (Dramione ← Dra[co]+[Her]mione; Duna ← D[ean]+[L]una) or a bromance (as in Johnlock ← John [Watson]+[Sher]lock [Holmes]) (for more details, see: [4]). Interestingly, most blended names demonstrate androcentric bias, as the ‘chip’ of a male’s name usually precedes that of his female partner’s name.

Pragmatically speaking, blends can be very effective for promotion and publicity. One example is the blend McConaissance (← McCona[ughey]+[re]naissance), which the actor Matthew McConaughey coined for self-marketing when told by a journalist in 2012 that his career needed a catchphrase. Luckily, it stuck [5]. McConaughey may have had no idea that this coinage would spread and help him relaunch his career and take on more serious roles. The blend has been taken up by Reddit forum users discussing what other actors are experiencing a revival of their career: “Ten years ago we had the Matthew McConaissance. I believe we are currently living in the Nicolas CAge of Enlightenment”; “Who will be the next actor/actress to experience a McConaissance?”; “What are some examples of actors who revitalized their career? Is their anybody you wanna see have their own “McConaissance”?”.

Another example is the case of Barbenheimer, a cultural phenomenon preceding the theatrical release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in June 2023. The clever blend was a real booster, generating memes and themed content across social media. Barbenheimer gave birth to a whole lot of other blends. Kenergy (← Ken+energy), for instance, is a coinage attributed to Ryan Gosling, and the concept includes Ken’s “blonde bimbo-esque vibe, his ability to not take himself too seriously and his “It’s Barbie’s world, I’m just living in it” attitude” [6]. Other Barbenheimer-based blends include Kenough (← Ken+enough), Kenaissance (← Ken+[re]naissance), Kensplaining (← Ken+[e]xplaining), and OppenHomies (← Oppenh[eimer]+Homie(s)). The blend Barbenheimer seemed a perfect recipe for a successful promotional campaign, an effective calculated strategy; however, the simultaneous theatrical release of James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu in December 2024 was not as hugely successful with the blend A Complete Unknosferatu. Still, the blurb to #152 episode on Cinephile’s Digest on podcasts.apple.com says, “You’ve heard of Barbenheimer, but get ready for A Complete Unknosferatu! We’re starting off 2025 strong with a double feature of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and the new film from Digest fav Bob Eggers, Nosferatu.” [7]

Digital communication fosters a wider spread of catchy blends — words that are way more common in colloquial speech (adorkable ← adorable+dork; Twiple ← Twi[tter]+[peo]ple, Raincouver ← rain+[Van]couver), professional communication (e.g., in clinical toxicology: poisontation ← poison+[represe]ntation; toxanthem ← tox[ic]+[e]xanthem (see: [8]), and slang (coronasplaining ← corona[virus]+ [e]xplaining; ronavation ← [co]rona+[reno]vation (see: [9]). These lexical layers are replenished with words derived primarily by compounding, truncation, and abbreviation, with blending accounting for approximately 12-15%, or even 50% of newly coined words (see, e.g., [10]). Very few of them, however, make it to the dictionary, since this sort of stylistically marked vocabulary is generally short-lived.

Blend words appear out of necessity [11], following the principle of language economy [12], they are the speaker’s deliberate choice [13], though can sometimes be produced spontaneously and unconsciously through a slip of the tongue or pen (distruption ← destruction+disruption; sombriety ← somberness+sobriety) [14]. The notorious blend refudiate is attributed to Sarah Palin, who misspoke, conflating the words refute and repudiate.

Blending is economical and allows for intentional word play. It is truly ubiquitous and can be found in cartoons, comic books, graphic novels, computer games (Weirdmageddon ← weird+[Ar]mageddon, manotaur ← man+[Mi]notaur (Gravity Falls); carrotillery ← carrot+[ar]tillery (Plants vs Zombies); sacrilicious ← sacril[egious] + [de]licious (The Simpsons)); sitcoms (Nerdvana ← nerd+[nir]vana (The Big Bang Theory); frienaissance ← frien[d]+[re]naissance (Friends)); newspapers (Snowmageddon ← snow+[Ar]mageddon; Snowpocalypse ← snow+[A]pocalypse; Snowzilla ← snow+[God]zilla; snowicane ← snow+[hurr]icane; snoverkill ← sno[w]+overkill); advertising, marketing, branding, blogging (blogebrity ← blog+[cel]ebrity; masstige ← mass+[pre]stige; subvertising ← subver[sive]+[ad]vertising; Versense ← Ver[sace]+sense; Fishcotheque ← fish [and chips]+[dis]cotheque; grandfluencer ← grand[mother]+[in]fluencer); food industry and food blogs (beefaroni ← beef+[mac]aroni; sushirrito ← sushi+[bu]rrito; croissandwich ←  croiss[ant]+sandwich; cronut ← cro[issant]+[dough]nut), etc.

As was mentioned above, despite the seeming omnipresence of blends, rarely do they come to stay. This can be attested by looking at the lists of new entries of Oxford English Dictionary. Of 3,398 new words added to the OED in 2020-2024, only 17 are interpreted as blends, which constitutes only 0.5%. A closer look at the words, however, shows that there are at least twice as many blends (42). This is because blending as a word-building pattern is a rather blurry concept.

There are quite a number of definitions of blends, with most linguists agreeing on defining lexical blending as “the merging of two (or more) lexemes into one involving partial loss of the phonological and/or graphic material of at least one of them” [15]. The disagreement, however, mostly pertains to the distinction between blends and other morphological categories, namely clipped compounds and combining forms (secreted affixes). The fundamental difference between blending and the other two categories is that the former is viewed as part of word-creation, rather than as a regular process of word formation [see 15; 16; 17]. Most of the definitions of blending can be reduced to two major approaches. The narrow approach defines a blend as a word “where the inner edges are truncated”, or where only the first word undergoes truncation; besides, the resulting lexeme must satisfy a set of conditions [18, pp. 66-70]. For instance, the word humidex (← humid[ity]+[in]dex) is undoubtedly a blend, whereas the word anecdata (← anecd[otal]+data) can be viewed as such, though will be considered a clipped compound by some linguists. Blending can be extended to a broader category which includes the ‘intercalative’ type (e.g., the advertising catchword Revolvolution, where Volvo is intercalated within re(vol)ution). Plus, cases where two word beginnings merge to form a blend [15], as in incel (← in[voluntary]+cel[ibate]) or hazmat (← haz(ardous)+mat(erial)). These latter examples are more likely to be viewed as either clipped compounds, such as eco-anxiety, in which eco- is defined as a ‘combining form’ by the OED, or syllabic abbreviations, as in comsec (← communications security) and Vo-Tech (← vocational technician). Clipped compounds also include cases of words attested as compound before being shortened, as in sitcom (← situation comedy (comp.n.)) and zom-com (← zombie comedy (comp.n.)). It should also be mentioned that a few linguists make a distinction “between new blends that are single formations created after a model word <…> and new blends that follow a schema model” [15]. Thus, there are some frequent blend splinters — -tainment, -tarian, -bot — that demonstrate a tendency towards regularity and productivity. The same is true for the above-mentioned combining forms: -gram, tele-, eco-, thermo-, -tropic, and the so-called secreted affixes, such as -holic, in which case the production of a new word involves abstraction [15]. Another broad definition includes lexemes produced by means of merging a regular affix/combining form and a truncated word, as in e-linquent (← e-(prefix/comb.form)+(de)linquent) [19, p. 33].

That said, the number of words classifiable as blends will depend on which definition of blending we adopt. If we follow the OED’s etymology summary, which provides the origin and word-formation pattern of each word, we will discover that what the Dictionary defines as a blend is indeed a blend (10 endocentric (or attributive, with one of the source words functioning as a semantic head, as in humidex) and 7 exocentric (both source words have the same semantic status, as in cucamelon)), mostly with an overlap in the middle (fusion): adorkable ← adorable+dork, foofy ← f[luf]fy+[p]oofy, humidex ← humid[ity]+[in]dex, coden ← code+[i]den[tifier], craftivist ← craft+[ac]tivist, schlocky ←schlock[y]+[h]ockey, athleisure ← athle[tic]+leisure, cucamelon ← cucu[mber]+melon, anecdata ← anecd[otal]+data, dramality ← dram[a]+[re]ality, glamazon ← glam[our]+[Am]azon, seggae ← seg[a]+[reg]gae, confuddle ← con[fuse/found]+fuddle/[be]fuddle, sharenting ← share+[p]arenting, zippie ← zip+[hip]pie. There are two exceptions, though: there is no overlap in brinicle (← brin[e]+[ic]icle (amalgamation)); and the word vote-a-rama (← vote[r]+a+rama) is defined as a blend in the OED, which seems inconsistent, since one of the etymons is classified as a combining form (-rama), and words thus formed are referred to the class of compounds by the Dictionary. For example, the word blockorama (← block+[pan]orama, -orama – combining form) is also produced by merging a word with a combining form, but the resulting lexeme is defined as a case of compounding, not blending. Summing up, the OED classifies the 17 words listed above as formed by blending, which makes up only 0.5% of all the new entries (2020-2024).

There are other words that demonstrate similarity in the word-formation pattern, but classified by the Dictionary as cases of different word-formation processes. The word seggae (← seg[a]+[re]ggae)), according to the OED, is formed by blending, whereas sheisty (← sh[it]+[f]eisty) is formed by compounding. The word pescatarian is a borrowing from Italian (pesce), combined with an English element (vegetarian); however, fishetarian, seemingly similar to pescatarian, is formed within English, by derivation (etymons: fish and vegetarian). The Dictionary does not list -tarian as a combining form, though the splinter seems to be quite productive and is likely to be added to the dictionary as such [15]. Likewise, words with less frequent splinters, like -scape (hellscape ← hell+(land)scape, brandscape ← brand+(land)scape, birdscape ← bird+[land]scape) are classified as cases of compounding (OED), with -scape referred to as a combining form; other dictionaries, however, classify these words as either formed by derivation, where -scape is an affix (Collins Dictionary [21]), or as formed by blending (OxfordLanguages, YourDictionary). Yet another example of structurally similar words being classified as cases of different word-formation processes includes birdicide, bullycide and femicide. According to the OED, the first lexeme is formed by compounding (-icide being a combining form); the second is also formed by compounding (suicide being an etymon); and the last one is a borrowing from Latin fēmina (-icide being a combining form). In rare cases, the OED provides two interpretations: “Perhaps formed within English, by blending. Perhaps formed within English, by derivation” for foofy; “Either (i) formed within English, by compounding. Or (ii) formed within English, by blending” for coden; “Zippie is a variant or alteration of another lexical item (yippie); zippie is apparently formed within English, by blending (zip+hippie)” for zippie.

If we follow the definition proposed by N. Belyaeva, the lists of new entries under investigation will yield twice and a half as many blends. Belyaeva defines a blend as “a lexical item formed by merging together two (or more) source forms, so that 1) only part of their orthographical and/or phonological material is preserved, and 2) they have not been formed by concatenation of morphs [19, p. 3]. This definition is very accurate and allows to avoid double interpretations and/or ambiguities. The ‘extended list’ of newly added blends will then include the following gems (mostly with endocentric relation): skinship ← skin+kinship, fingle ← fing[er]+[fa]ngle, kitchenalia ← kitchen+[paraphern]alia, shero ← she+[h]ero, remoaner ← rem[ainer]+moaner (fusion); broadloid ← broad[sheet]+[tab]loid, shockvertising ← shock+[ad]vertising, soysage ← soy+[sau]sage, cuckservative ← cuck+[con]servative, Jewdar ← Jew+[ra]dar, Jewfro ← Jew+[A]fro, babyccino ← baby+[cappu]ccino (amalgamation), and some other words, often labelled as colloq., slang, derog., or reg. One of the main conclusions of this study is that a corpus-based analysis of new English blends in the OED retrieved from the online version of the dictionary by the parameter of the formation process involved (blending/blend) might yield fewer relevant results, as the OED is not always consistent in defining the word-formation process.

The analysis of the OED’s new entries (not new words!) (2020-2024) shows that blending is a productive word-formation pattern, associated with the colloquial register of modern English. Most of the new blends belong to slang, a part of the lexicon restricted to a particular context or group of people and often involving word creation (as opposed to patterned formation). Case studies of slang blends show that blending is highly productive; however, slang words are short-lived and fleeting, hence, few blends end up in the dictionary. One notable exception is Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary [22], of which only one nonce word scrumdiddlyumptious was added to the OED (as an alteration of another lexical item!), which does not attribute the creation of the lexeme to Roald Dahl, who simply popularized the American slang word first used in the 1940s. Blending is, indeed, a fuzzy concept; besides, different dictionaries vary in how they interpret some words in terms of word-formation patterns. Surprisingly, one and the same dictionary can offer conflicting interpretations of structurally similar lexemes. Blends are stylistically marked, expressive words, often coined out of necessity to fill in a language gap, following the principle of language economy. Some ‘chips’ of new blends become regular splinters that provide a schema for producing new words according to a more or less regular pattern (-tainment, -zilla, -tarian). Pragmatically-wise, blends catch our attention — a function exploited in the media, advertising, and the entertainment industry.

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Список источников
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