Taking your ‘frenemy’ to see ‘Barbenheimer’ after ‘brunch’? We all are.

Barbenheimer. Bidenomics. DeSanctimonious.

The portmanteau is having a moment.

Portmanteaus are a clever and classic language device: combine two words — say, breakfast and lunch — to make a new word — brunch, anyone? — that has its own meaning, but whose definition can be easily divined from its origins.

The moment isn’t exactly new — portmanteaus (or portmanteaux, depending on how allegiant you are to the word’s French roots) have been around a long time. But the effect (unlike that letter x) is pronounced, whether in a $235.5 million opening weekend for two movies (Barbie and Oppenheimer) that each might not have caused such a splash on its own, or a GDP growth that’s nearly four times stronger than initial projections (Bidenomics at work!), or a onetime presidential contender weighted down by some clever nicknaming from a formidable opponent (“DeSanctimonious” is more authentic than “Crooked Hillary”).

These Frankenwords all work for a simple reason: They’re catchy.

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The word comes from the French portemanteau, an “officer who carries the mantle of a person in a high position,” which is itself a kind of portmanteau (porte- and manteau). Though the word has been in use in reference to luggage for nearly five centuries, its language associations have been around for only about 150 years, when, in Through the Looking-Glass, author Lewis Carroll used it to explain the combination of lithe and slimy to make slithy in Jabberwocky.

A century and a half later, we have seltzeritas, frappuccinos, and coffeetinis.

Portmanteaus are sticky, in a good way. They combine familiar words to create something new but understandable. That familiar novelty makes our brains happy: Here’s something that I didn’t know existed a moment ago, but I immediately understand it without having to look it up in a big, heavy dictionary. Because I’m lazy.

Portmanteaus are sticky, in a good way.

Once people have that positive association with that new word, they remember it and reuse it.

And voila: a double-blockbuster weekend.

Some portmanteaus catch on so thoroughly that their origins are forgotten. Words like webinar (web seminar), smog (smoke and fog), motel (motor hotel), and electrocute (electricity and execute) are so common that users don’t think about where those words come from.

Sometimes a portmanteau will far outlive its origins: Podcast is a blend of iPod and broadcast, but good luck finding an iPod on which to listen to a podcast; the last iPod was discontinued in 2022.

The same catchiness that made podcasts outlast their native medium can be a double-edged sword in politics, where everyone is constantly searching for a word or two that can encapsulate a complicated idea. Bidenomics, which first surfaced shortly before the 2020 election, spent a few years as an insult from conservatives over inflation and spending. Then, in a sharp rebranding, the president’s team co-opted and reapplied it to workforce development and infrastructure investments. Last month, the White House even put out a press release headlined, “Bidenomics Is Working.” Doing so made the word surge in popularity, as Google lookups spiked.

It’s certainly not the first time a politician has taken a term of derision and applied it to an eventual success; just ask Obamacare.

Somebody tell the brainiacs in the Ron DeSantis campaign (or those in the Twitterverse and blogosphere) to innovent a clever portmanteau, and quick. Otherwise his erstwhile bromance with his frenemy Trump coupled with his Florida-styled eracism and his QAnonsense could prove his downfall before his campaign even gets off the tarmac.

The Grammarian, otherwise known as Jeffrey Barg, looks at how language, grammar, and punctuation shape our world, and appears biweekly. Send comments, questions, and interrobangs to jeff@theangrygrammarian.com.