Why Do Word Blends with Near-Synonymous Composites Exist and Persist? The Case of Guesstimate, Chillax, Ginormous and Confuzzled

• Authors: Thomas Rhys Evans , Gail Steptoe-Warren
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Despite their increasing use, little is known about the purpose of word blends, e.g. chillax, which have near-synonymous composite words (relax and chill). Potential explanations for their existence and persistence include: use in different sentence constructions, to provide unique meaning, and to create interest/identity. Th e current study used a vignette methodology with two-hundred and forty-one students to explore the relevance of such hypotheses for ‘guesstimate’, ‘chillax’, ‘ginormous’, and ‘confuzzled’. Our inconsistent results suggest that the semantics of the word blends may diff er from their composites in very subtle ways. However further work is needed to acknowledge and determine the impact of context upon the use and consequences of these word blends.

Keywords

EN

word blends; synonyms; portmanteau; blends; words; language

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Psychology of Language and Communication
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 19-28

Dates

published

2015-05-01

online

2015-05-29

Contributors

author

Thomas Rhys Evans

• Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, England

author

Gail Steptoe-Warren

• Coventry University

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/plc-2015-0002