tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8937414969460147900.post6568734326841456217..comments2024-03-06T07:06:38.928-08:00Comments on JSBlog - Journal of a Southern Bookreader: Toff: cod etymology and duff metadataRay Girvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05556764642402680159noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8937414969460147900.post-91588133152840183062009-10-15T00:30:27.291-07:002009-10-15T00:30:27.291-07:00A Dorothyesque journey through a surreal landscape...A Dorothyesque journey through a surreal landscape which I've greatly enjoyed ... and during which my breakfast grew cold!<br><br>:-)<br><br>Thanks.Felixnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8937414969460147900.post-29773539169550100872009-10-18T09:56:14.404-07:002009-10-18T09:56:14.404-07:00Indeed. (Might avoid mishits in the the future sin...Indeed. <br>(Might avoid mishits in the the future since it could be miscontrued as Irish vernacular.)<br>I've often wondered about the use of "Oxbridge." Apparently, it is a "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau" rel="nofollow">portmanteau</a>" word which I thought meant that big bag Europeans carry around on the train. I can't think of any analogous word in Americanese. "Ivy League" isn't a portmanteau.<br><br>More interestingly for a word freak is that the first use of portmanteau in the Oxbridge sense was by Lewis Carrol in "Through the Looking Glass:" "You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word". Of course Carrol is the one who said something like "the meaning of a word is just exactly what you want it to mean." (I'm paraphrasing, but this way of thinking is ubiquitous in our governments, especially in the eight years of Bush in Washington.)<br><br>The best portmanteau of all is, of course, Chocoholic. <br><br>Furthermore, Wikipedia is a portmanteau. So, what, you might ask is "Wiki?" Well, it is Hawaiian for fast, coined by the developer of the first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki" rel="nofollow">wiki software</a>, Ward Cunningham. <br><br>But you knew all this.Dr. Cnoreply@blogger.com