Monday, June 9, 2008

Portmanteaux du jour

Two recently heard portmanteau(x? - never sure how to pluralize), one good, one bad:

  • Clowd: (via Seth Godin). Meant to refer to the idea of combining crowd-sourcing with cloud-computing. i.e. send execution out there to the 'cloud', but maybe it's crowdsourced and it's actually this amorphous human engine that executes it. I like the idea, but as a portmanteau, it's almost impossible to audibly differentiate 'clowd' from 'cloud', not to mention the confusion when it's someone with a Canadian accent pronouncing it. Visually, looks too much like 'clown'. Is it a portmanteau form of a snide jeer? If so, then it's a little too clever!
This next one I love so much more.
  • Psychogylcimic: A clever combination that clearly indicates the behavior exhibited by some when their blood sugar gets low. My wife started using this one immediately upon hearing it.

2 comments:

Darius Kazemi said...

Wow, psychoglycemic is PERFECT. Thanks for that one.

Anonymous said...

Yes, "Portmanteaux" is correct :)