Portmanteau Words

Portmanteau words are those in which two meanings are packed into one word. They are formed by blending or combining two words into one. Lewis Carroll, best known for the classic” Alice in Wonderland”, was the first to come up with such words in his poem Jabberwocky. Two of the his words are brillig ( brilliant+ evening) and slithy (slimy + lithe).These two never became popular but there are many others that are in widespread use today. I was amazed to find how many portmanteau words there are. I divide them into three classes.

I. Those in common usage that we don’t think of as portmanteau words. Two examples are flare ( flame + glare= a sudden burst of bright light) and chortle ( chuckle + snort = to laugh in a breathy gleeful way). Those two I like, but I hate meld (melt+ weld= to blend or combine) probably because it is overused.

II. Those which are commonly used and are obvious portmanteau words. Some examples are smog, brunch, sitcom, infomercial, Chunnel, Cineplex, modem and fanzine. Turducken (Turkey+ duck + chicken =  a chicken stuffed into a duck  stuffed into a turkey) is the only  three-in-one portmanteau word that I know. These are all familiar and easy to decipher but there are others that are of more recent vintage which may not be so obvious. A prime example is affluenza ( affluence + influenza) which means “a lack of guilt or motivation experienced by people who have made or inherited a lot of money”. Apparently, the word dates back to 1954 but became known to the public at large as a result of the notorious drunk driving trial of Ethan Couch. Couch was a 16 year old who drove a pick up truck into a crowd of people that was helping a stranded motorist. Four people were killed and one of the passengers in Couch’s pickup was permanently paralyzed. Couch’s blood alcohol limit was tested at 0.24 ( three times the limit). At his juvenile trial in 2016, a defense expert used the term affluenza while arguing that Couch’s wealthy parents had coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility ! He was found guilty and sentenced to only 120 days in jail and 10 years probation. Before he began his sentence, Couch’s mother spirited him off to Mexico but they were found and extradited back to the U.S. He was subsequently sentenced to two years in jail.

III. Those that are not only obscure but are impossible to break down into their component words. For example, what do you think listicle means. I would have guessed an article that is part of a list. Wrong! It actually means ” a piece of writing or other content presented wholly or partly in the form of a list”. Go figure! What about manspreading? It is defined as ” the practice whereby a man traveling on public transport sits with his legs wide apart so as to encroach on an adjoining seat or seats”. I must admit I found that word hilarious, even though it wasn’t as funny as when I encountered its practitioners in real life.

However, the word that really gets my goat is glamping which is a combination of the words glamour + camping. It means vacationing in a rustic setting while enjoying luxurious amenities such as sleeping on soft bedding in a safari tent or teepee, having ample hot water, toilets with heated seats and restaurant quality food “cooked” under the supervision of a chef. ” Cooking”, in this case, means turning your steak when chef at your elbow tells you exactly when to do so. The word angers me because it is the antithesis of camping which implies roughing it out in the great outdoors. Glamping merely gives the illusion of ruggedness while babying customers who pay handsomely for the experience. If I were to coin a word to describe my feelings about such people it would be contempsise ( contempt + despise). The word does not exist ( I just made it up) but all the other portmanteau words in this post can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Hard to believe but true!

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Exclamation Points… Use and Misuse

Elmore Leonard offered a much quoted dictum about the use of exclamation points ( or exclamation marks) in his book  10 Rules of Writing : “ You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.” For most of my life, I had no problem adhering to this rule because I rarely used a punctuation mark. It seemed artificial and I was well able to manage without it.

The purpose of an exclamation point is to ” indicate strong feelings or high volume” and it often marks the end of a sentence.  Initially used to convey joy, wonderment ( ” Eureka!”) or other positive feelings its use was later expanded to communicate  astonishment in a negative sense ( ” Alas!”). Since I never used such interjections, it was easy to avoid using the exclamation point.

All that changed with the advent of e-mails and, more particularly, text messaging. The use of exclamation points exploded and it is not unusual nowadays to see them used in bunches, three or four of them one after another. I must confess that I too am now an inveterate user of exclamation points in my text messages( though only one at a time) and, to a lesser extent, my e-mail.

Why this sudden change?

There are two reasons that are advanced to explain this phenomenon. Eliot Hannon writing in Slate calls exclamation points ” a tonic in the grayness of electronic communication.” He adds” the more insignificant the message, the more the exclamation points.”  Others have put forth the idea that exclamation points are a sign of ” the general exaggeration, aggressiveness and extremism of our culture.”

I subscribe to the first explanation. Often, after I have tapped out a text message and am reading it prior to sending it, I find it sounds abrupt and unfeeling, somehow incomplete. The solution: Add an exclamation point. A text message is not so much a written communication as a written conversation and, because it has to be brief, it is well nigh impossible to convey tone and emphasis without resorting to exclamation points. Twitter  demands even more brevity and Twitterers use exclamation points even more freely. I also suspect that many writers on social media are poor communicators and don’t have the language skills to convey what they want to say without devices such as exclamation points.

Not that Elmore Leonard followed his own rule. In his 45 novels, he used an average of 45 exclamation points per 100,000 words, about 16 times as many as he recommended.  However, he is still better than most others. Salman Rushdie used 204 ( per 100,000), Tom Wolfe  929 and James Joyce 1,105.*

Ultimately, it is up to individuals to use as few ( or as many) exclamation points as they want. Elmore Leonard notwithstanding, there are no hard and fast rules for the use of exclamation points. Let it also be said, however, that an abundance of exclamation points is visually unappealing and causes the discerning reader to have a poor opinion of the writer.

P.S I didn’t use a single exclamation point in this post ( except to give an example) and it wasn’t really difficult to do so.

• Figures are from Nabakov’s Favorite Word Was Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers and Our Own Writing  by Ben Blatt.

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Writing Doesn’t Come Easy to Me

Some years ago, I was very impressed with a piece written by a journalist friend of mine. It flowed smoothly and was both interesting and humorous. I asked him how long it had taken him to write. ” Twenty, twenty five minutes”, he told me. I was floored by his answer and not a little envious. Writing doesn’t come easy to me. To write a polished 700 word article like his would have taken me the better part of a day.

Later, I thought about this incident. Granted my friend was a trained journalist and could be expected to write fast ; still, he couldn’t be that fast. Then, the answer came to me. Before he wrote the article, my friend must have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about it, gathering his thoughts, refining them and preparing to write. The twenty or twenty-five minutes represented only the time he spent in the mechanical task of getting the words down on paper.It did not include the time he had spent getting ready to write. I don’t think my friend intentionally tried to steer me wrong; it’s just that he answered my question too narrowly.

On the other hand, there are some people who try to mislead you about the time it takes them to write something. One such was John O’Hara, author of From the Terrace, Ten North Frederick and other novels set in the mythical town of Gibbsville. Pennsylvania. He was one of  my favorite authors when I was in college and I tried to read up on him whenever I could. There is a delicious story  about O’Hara that Brendan Gill tells us  in his marvelous book Here at the New Yorker.

O’Hara, later in his career, was a staff writer for the New Yorker. When he sat down to write an article, he would do it in one sitting, writing steadily and non-stop until the article was complete. There were no pauses, no hesitation. At the New Yorker, the walls between cubicles were very thin; the measured clacking of typewriter keys could easily be heard in adjoining cubicles. Consequently, O’Hara’s fellow writers were in awe of his seemingly effortless writing and not a few were envious of him. What they did not know was that O’Hara prepared meticulously at home, polishing each sentence, each word until all that remained was to get the words down on paper. Then he came to the office and knocked out his article in no time at all.

In my own case, I have great difficulty coming up with ideas and writing about them. However, I have developed a method that works for me. It’s like this.

As is common with many of us at this stage of our lives, I can’t sleep through the night the way I used to. No matter what time I go to bed, I wake up around 4 or 4:30 AM and just lie in bed for an hour or more until I doze off again. What I now do is to use that time to think about what I want to write. I consider various ideas until I settle on one I like; then I virtually compose it in my head. When I later sit down at the computer, all that remains is to transfer my draft to paper.

The method has several advantages. Firstly, it enables me to work faster. Less time spent writing and revising. Secondly, it reduces the time I spend sitting at the computer. As my wife reminds me, long hours sitting in one place are bad for health and can result in DVT, Deep Vein Thrombosis. Thirdly, less time at the computer frees me to do other things. And , finally, I sleep better after one of these sessions.

It took me only thirty-five minutes to write this article … but this does not include the hours I spent in the course of two nights thinking about it. If anyone tells you that writing is easy for him (or her) , don’t believe it. If it were really that easy, there would be more of us doing it.

 

 

 

 

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I Join a Writing Club

Almost as soon as we moved into our development,I had known there was a writing club , Writing Our Stories, but I’d resisted the idea of joining. At first, we were busy settling down and  had no time for it. Later, we got busy with our other activities and clubs and , once again, I put off it off. At heart, also, I may have been a little nervous about reading what I wrote to a bunch of new acquaintances. Last month, finally, I decided to take the plunge and join.

I called up the club’s organizer and said I would like to attend. She was very welcoming and said that was happy I’d decided to. Then she added something that floored me : she said that I would be the first male member of the club and that it would be interesting to members to hear a different point of view, get a different perspective. This made me nervous all over again but I’d said that I would attend and I didn’t want to chicken out. I’m glad I did.

I went to my first meeting two weeks ago and the ladies couldn’t have been nicer. There were eight of them ( four others were out of town or otherwise unable to attend). The previous week’s assignment was : “What is the first thing you experience in the morning when you get up? Describe it; remember it can be something you see, hear, smell or otherwise feel.”  Each member read out what she had written and it was well received. I read out one of my old posts from this blog and the feedback was very appreciative. The week after, the assignment was: “The door opened and what a surprise… Expand upon the sentence. ”

I quickly discovered something about myself when it comes to writing. I am pretty good with words but I have no imagination at all ! My imagination gene is missing! As the others read out their efforts, I was amazed at how many different directions they took even though they started with the same sentence. It has been an education and I think I will learn a lot trying to keep up with them.

What I really love most about the club is the social aspect. Thanks to the club I’ve been able to get in touch with a new group of people, different from the ones I usually associate with. They are very open in the way they talk and already feel I’ve known them a long time, certainly longer than two weeks. So many different experiences they’ve had, such a multiplicity of perspectives and so many new things for me to think about. Yes, I’m very glad I joined Writing Our Stories.

At the last meeting, one of the ladies handed out copies of this poem. The author, Chanie Gorkin, is not a member of this club and none of us knows who she is. What we all agree is that this a wonderful poem, very clever and with a message too. I feel it deserves a larger audience, which is why I’m reproducing it below. I think you’ll agree with me that it is terrific.

 Make sure you read it slowly, all the way through and follow directions.

Worst Day Ever ?

by Chanie Gorkin

Today was the absolute worst day ever

And don’t try to convince me that

There’s something good in every day

Because, when you take a closer look,

The world is a pretty evil place.

Even if

Some goodness does shine through once in a while

Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.

And it’s not true that

It’s all in the mind and heart

Because

True happiness can be attained

Only if one’s surroundings are good

It’s not true that good exists

I’m sure that you can agree that

The reality

Creates

My attitude

It’s all beyond my control

And you’ll never in a million years hear me say

Today was a very good day.

Now read it from bottom to top, the other way, and see what I really feel about my day.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Written Word and the Spoken

My last post ” The Journey Inward” was based on a passage from Pico Iyer’s book ” The Art of Stillness”. Iyer’s book was a TED publication, and it surprised me to know that TED is more just than short talks. Apparently, some of the talks have companion books which, like the talks, are short and pithy and meant to be read at one sitting. The Art of Stillness is a pocket-sized book, only 64 pages long, actually even shorter when you consider that it has several atmospheric photographs of sunrises and desolate Icelandic landscapes. It can be read in 45 minutes to an hour.

After I read the book, I discovered it was an extended version of Iyer’s TED talk, so I went to YouTube and listened to the talk.I enjoyed it, perhaps a little more than the book. Iyer is a fluent speaker and I admired his presentation and the way he seemed to use just the right word every time. The book was more detailed but not as seamless.

Afterwards, I got to musing about the ways in which we absorb information. It seems to me that we are moving away from reading  and towards watching videos. Perhaps it is only to be expected since so many of us are gravitating towards watching TV in lieu of reading books or magazines or newspapers. We get our news from TV , we watch sports on TV  and even the online newspapers we dip into have an ever-increasing amount of video content. In education, the runaway success of the Khan Academy is an illustration of this trend; MOOCS and online college courses are another. In my library, too, I see increasing amounts of shelf space given over to videos at the expense of books.

There is nothing wrong with getting information from videos and, in any case, it is impossible to arrest the relentless march of technology. If people feel they can assimilate better by watching a video , they will do so. However, when they do this exclusively or when they stop reading I feel it takes away from their critical thinking ability,and their writing skills. Videos are fine for quick assimilation of basic skills and information but there is a tendency among viewers to accept what they see as gospel. For more complicated subjects, the printed word is a must. Reading slows down the process of assimilation but, in doing so, it also makes the reader think more deeply, more critically. In addition, the reader subconsciously learns to appreciate good writing and to incorporate what he learns into his own writing… if he is a thoughtful reader, that is.

When I was still working, ten , fifteen, twenty years ago I was struck by the poor quality of the memos I came across daily. These memos were written by people whose mother tongue was English, almost all of them college graduates. It was sad to note how the writers, who were perfectly competent in their professional capacity, could not compose even a short paragraph without mistakes in grammar as well as composition. In the years since then, the standard of writing has fallen, if anything. People in this country are very good at expressing themselves verbally, but in writing …unfortunately, no.

I had thought that the fault lay in our education system where the quality of instruction leaves much to be desired, particularly in the subjects of math and science. The teaching of English is better but not by much. That is a whole different subject and I don’t want to get into it here. What I’ve come to realize is the pernicious effect of watching videos instead of reading. Just as calculators and computers have eroded math skills, TV and the social media are harming the way our youngsters think and write.

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Less is More

The phrase ” Less is more” was coined by the poet Robert Browning over a hundred and fifty years ago, but it is usually attributed to the architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe  who used it to convey the idea that simplicity and clarity are the hallmarks of good design. Recently , however, I came across another situation in which this seemingly contradictory statement makes perfect sense.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen found that those who exercised for thirty minutes daily lost more weight than those who exercised for sixty minutes every day. On the face of it , this doesn’t make sense since those who exercised more would be expected to shed weight faster. This is the explanation: Those who exercised for sixty minutes were so tired that they did not do much else the rest of the day. They just sat around the house and, because of their increased appetite, wound up eating more. On the other hand, those who had exercised for only thirty minutes were not as tired, were more active the rest of the day and also ate less. Ergo, they lost more weight.

Less is more. Makes sense , doesn’t it ?

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… And a Slice of Noah’s Boy

Being a short order cook in a diner is an unenviable profession. A short order cook  has to work fast even as he fields a never ending stream of orders. Any opportunity for levity is welcome, anything to lessen the pressure of putting out the food quickly without making any mistakes that might result in the order sent back. As a result, cooks and servers have developed their own lingo , one that makes the orders easy to remember and sometimes injects an element of fun.

Some of these terms are easy to figure out. For instance , The Twins obviously stands for Salt and Pepper. Another term for the same is Mike and Ike. Other terms are more obscure. What do you think Gentleman will take a Chance stands for? The answer is at the end of this post.

Here are some other terms you might hear being tossed about if you were to go into the kitchen of a diner:

Adam and Eve on a Raft … Two poached eggs on toast.

.. And a Slice of Noah’s Boy.. .  with a slice of Ham. ( Noah’s son was Ham).

Shipwreck … Scrambled eggs.

Burn One … Put a burger on the griddle. 

Take it through the Garden and put a Rose on it …  Add lettuce , tomato and Onion.

Coney Island Chicken … Hot Dog.

Bun Pup … Hot Dog.

First Lady … Barbecued Ribs. ( Eve was fashioned from Adam’s Rib ).

If you haven’t figured it out , and I’d be very surprised if you did, Gentleman will Take a Chance means Corned Beef Hash.

I’ll let you work out the reason why.  

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Less Than What Meets The Eye

When someone’s words are quoted I expect them to be profound and insightful or, failing that, witty and memorable. There are some authors, La Rochefoucald is one, who are quoted so often that one wonders whether their entire output consists of quotations. On the other hand, there are some quotations which impress initially but, upon closer examination, turn out to be underwhelming.
One such is by noted film director Pedro Almodovar and appears in Paul Theroux’s travel book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Almodovar is quoted as saying ” Anything that is not autobiography is plagiarism.” When I first read it, I immediately thought of John Steinbeck who was of the opinion that a writer could not write about anything that he had not personally experienced, a stricture that he himself observed for the most part. Then I thought about the quote a little more and began to revise my opinion.
To begin with , plagiarism is a strong word to use in this context. There is very little that is truly original. No matter whether it is films, plays, books or any other artistic endeavor, it is usually influenced by what has already been done, sometimes strongly , other times not. For instance, Hunger Games undoubtedly has its roots in Shirley Jackson’s short story masterpiece ” The Lottery”, but it has completely transformed the original premise.( There are other discernible influences too, but I won’t go into that here.)
Also, many of today’s blockbusters are set in the future or the distant past, and often feature superheroes. Obviously, they have nothing to do with autobiography; just as obviously, they are not plagiarism. If writers and other artistes were to confine themselves to what they have experienced first hand, theirs would a very limited palette and it would soon become very boring. In my opinion, only something that is reproduced exactly can be termed as plagiarism.
On this topic of quotes, I couldn’t help thinking about Ashleigh Brilliant( born 1933), the author, syndicated cartoonist and sometime professor of history who has been dubbed the world’s ” only full time professional epigrammist.” Brilliant ( he says that his real name) conceived the idea of putting down his thoughts in short, pithy sayings of seventeen words or less, copyrighting them and charging a fee for those who wanted to use them. He was not shy about claiming copyright infringement and taking his case to the courts; a judge sided with him on the grounds that his sayings were epigrams and could therefore be copyright restricted. David Brinkley once paid him $ 1,000 because he had unknowingly used one of Brilliant’s epigrams in the title of a book. Brilliant hawks his epigrams in a variety of forms including T-shirts, postcards, caps, card-sets, mugs , magnets etc. You can get a fuller list of his products from his website. For myself, I am impressed by Brilliant’s chutzpah but not by his epigrams. Very, very few of his sayings are profound and most of them exhibit a cynicism and brittle sense of humor that leave me cold. In my opinion, Brilliant is not brilliant.

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A Diarrhea of Words

Have you noticed how many writers, later in their careers, have less to write about but need more words to do it in ?  I wouldn’t say his happens with every writer but it happens often enough for me to have noticed it. A good example is James D. Doss, the author of the Charlie Moon mysteries. The charm of these books lay in the author’s asides and the way in which the different characters articulated their thoughts. Particularly funny was Daisy Perika, Charlie Moon’s ancient aunt, a curmudgeonly, irascible, cunning yet lovable sort who carried on conversations with an imaginary goblin type creature called the pintukupf. However, towards the end of Doss’ writing career, the strength of the Charlie Moon books became their weakness. The author’s ratiocinations and the characters musings became longer and longer until they took over the book. The last novel in the series, The Old Gray Wolf, written just before Doss passed away, was practically unreadable.

I’ve noticed the same thing with several other authors, among them Tom Clancy, W.E.B. Griffin, Robert D. Parker , Stuart Woods and  P.C. Doherty. It is perfectly understandable because it is very, very difficult to come up with fresh ideas after a while. Some, who are authoring a series of novels about a central character, stick to a formula that they know will be successful with their devoted readers. A good example is John D. McDonald, the creator of the Travis McGee series about the laidback Florida adventurer who lives on a houseboat, The Busted Flush, and makes a career out of rescuing damsels in distress and keeping a percentage of the money he recovers. Each novel ends with McGee sailing off into the sunset with the rescued fair maiden, nursing her back to full recovery by bedding her frequently. This theme no doubt struck a chord with readers , especially male readers, who made McDonald one of the best selling authors in the seventies and eighties.

Without this strategy, what else can authors do when they run short of ideas? One device is to make the books appear longer than they are by including a lot of dialogue which results in fewer words per page and more pages , thicker books. In Doss’ case, he fluffs up his book by having his characters think out aloud, at length.

There are some authors who are able to maintain the quality of their books to the end of their writing careers. One of them was Jon Cleary(1917-2010) , the Australian author of the Scobie Malone mysteries set in Sydney, who was active well into his late eighties. There aren’t too many like him.

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Good Prose :A Wise ,Thoughtful, and Beautifully Written Book

There are two things that most people  feel they can do.  Some  people know  they can open a restaurant ; others are certain they can  write a book. The reality of course is far different . Neither cooking nor writing is as easy as it seems . That is why so many restaurants are opened with such great hopes and go bust within months. It is why that blockbuster novel never gets written.

Good Prose by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd is a difficult book to classify . It is a collaboration between Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, and Richard Todd , his long-time editor. Todd was Kidder’s first editor when the latter started writing for the Atlantic Monthly and he has continued to work with Kidder over a period of forty years .Together , Kidder and Todd explore some of the problems of writing non-fiction – narratives , essays , and memoirs – and offer sound advice on the art and craft of writing and editing . One of them, usually Kidder, will start a chapter and the other will then chime in  with his thoughts and with examples , often from their joint experiences .

Good Prose is not a guide to style like the E.B. White classic , The Elements of Style . It does not offer grammatical rules or lists of do’s and don’ts. It pre-supposes that the reader has at least a nodding acquaintance with White’s book or with Fowler’s Modern English Usage. What it does offer is sound advice about some of the nuances of the craft of writing, and the format of the book makes it a delight to read.

Kidder (and Todd ) are not afraid to voice contrary opinions . For instance , early in the book , Kidder tells us he does not agree with the idea that writers should ” hook” or ” grab” or ” capture” the reader with an arresting beginning. This is the way , he phrases it in his elegant p[rose ” Beginnings are an exercise in limits . You can’t make the reader love you in the first sentence or paragraph , but you can lose the reader right away. You don’t expect the doctor to cure you at once, but the doctor can surely alienate you at once , with brusqueness or bravado or indifference or confusion . There is a lot to be said for the quiet beginning “.

The book  introduced me to complexities that I’d never considered. For instance , all of us are familiar with the “point of view” , first person or third person . Here, I read for the  first time about intricacies such as the ” restricted ( or limited) third person” ,  the ” minor first person ” and the ” unreliable narrator” point of view. There is no reason for  readers to feel daunted ; each of these terms is lucidly explained with well-chosen examples. Indeed , one of the charms of the book is the excerpts that are used to illustrate a concept. As a result of reading this book , I’ve come across  three other authors to sample in the future.

Though Kidder is a Pulitzer Prize winning author , I’d never before read any of his articles or books . As I read Good Prose , I found myself stopping to admire and savor the quality of the writing . Kidder, and Todd , have a smooth , limpid style which conveys what they want to say lucidly , yet efficiently . Every word , every phrase is well-chosen and one sentence flows into the next. They make it look so easy and yet it most assuredly is not . For instance, this is what Kidder & Todd  have to say about describing a character. ” … one sure way to lose a reader is trying to get down everything you know about a person. What the imaginative reader wants is telling details…. Whether it is brief or lengthy , mere description won’t vivify a statue . What we want are essences, woven into a story in moments large and small. A character has a wart. You could describe it in detail , but the reader would probably see it more clearly if you described not the wart but how the character covers it when he is nervous . ”

All of the book is worth reading but there were some parts that I found less compelling than others. One such is the chapter on Art and Commerce , which weighs in upon the relationship between writers and publishers . Writers may find it useful but , for me , it was not very interesting . This is not to say that Good Prose is meant to be read only by writers . On the contrary , it can be read with profit by anyone who loves good writing : writers of all kinds ,of course, but also  anyone else  interested in the craft of writing .

Reading this book will enable the reader to better understand the craft of writing, and the effort that goes into the writing of a book. The American author , Katherine Boo, spent almost four years in a Bombay slum called Annawadi before she wrote “Behind the Beautiful Forevers“. I used to wonder why it took so long for a writer to finish a book ; not any longer. I’ve also come to realize that I’ve been unfairly prejudiced against modern authors . Good writing is not to be found only in old classics ; it exists  everywhere , even in contemporary works .  One may admire a Model T or a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow but , in today’s world , the Toyota Camry is more relevant and it is what one buys .

Good Prose is definitely a worthwhile read . In fact , I’d venture that it is to be savored a little at a time, read and re-read with pleasure.

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