Word of the Week 11/25/18: Portmanteau

From Dictionary.com:

A case or bag to carry clothing in while traveling, especially a leather trunk or suitcase that opens into two halves.1580s, "traveling case or bag for clothes and other necessaries," from Middle French portemanteau "traveling bag," originally "court official who carried a prince's mantle" (1540s), from porte, imperative of porter "to carry" + manteau "cloak".Portmanteau word "word blending the sound of two different words" (1882), coined by "Lewis Carroll" (Charles L. Dodgson, 1832-1898) for the sort of words he invented for "Jabberwocky," on notion of "two meanings packed up into one word."

From Wiktionary:

First used by Lewis Carroll in 1871, based on the concept of two words packed together, like a portmanteau (“a travelling case having two halves joined by a hinge”).A word which combines the meaning of two words (or, rarely, more than two words), formed by combining the words, usually, but not always, by adjoining the first part of one word and the last part of the other, the adjoining parts often having a common vowel; for example, smog, formed from smoke and fog.

From Vocabulary.com:

You might remember portmanteau from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the portmanteau word, in which "two meanings are packed up into one word." So, according to Humpty Dumpty, slithy means "lithe and slimy," and mimsy is "flimsy and miserable."

Word of the Week 11/18/18: Sobriquet

From Wikipedia:

A sobriquet is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another. Distinct from a pseudonym, it usually is a familiar name used in place of a real name without the need of explanation, often becoming more familiar than the original name.

From Wiktionary:

Borrowed from French sobriquet (“nickname”), from Middle French soubriquet (“a chuck under the chin”).

From Vocabulary.com:

Sobriquets are often but not always humorous, so in order to pronounce this word, you might want to remember that the last syllable rhymes with play. Sobriquets are usually given to you by other people, but you can choose one for yourself.

Word of the Week 11/11/18: Bowdlerize

From Merriam-Webster:

1 literature : to expurgate (something, such as a book) by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgarbowdlerize the text2 : to modify by abridging, simplifying, or distorting in style or content

Few editors have achieved the notoriety of Thomas Bowdler. Bowdler was trained as a physician, but when illness prevented him from practicing medicine, he turned to warning Europeans about unsanitary conditions at French watering places. He then carried his quest for purification to literature, and in 1818 he published his Family Shakspeare [sic], a work in which he promised that "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The sanitized volume was popular with the public of the day, but literary critics denounced his modifications of the words of the Bard. Bowdler applied his literary eraser broadly, and within 11 years of his death in 1825, the word bowdlerize was being used to refer to expurgating books or other texts.

From Oxford Dictionaries:

Bowdlerize (or bowdlerise) means ‘remove material that is considered improper or offensive from (a text or account), especially with the result that the text becomes weaker or less effective’

Bowdlerize owes its existence to Thomas Bowdler. This came about because of Thomas Bowdler’s The Family Shakspeare (retitled The Family Shakespeare in subsequent editions, following the differing trends for spelling the playwright’s name). This was published in 1818, in 10 volumes; an advertisement quoting the preface declared Bowdler’s intention:

Word of the Week 11/4/18: Phlegmon

From Healthline:

Phlegmon is a medical term describing an inflammation of soft tissue that spreads under the skin or inside the body. It’s usually caused by an infection and produces pus.  

The difference between phlegmon and abscess is as follows:
- A phlegmon is unbounded and can keep spreading out along connective tissue and muscle fiber.
- An abscess is walled in and confined to the area of infection. Usually, an abscess can be drained of its infected fluid. A phlegmon can’t be easily drained.

From Wikipedia:

As with any form of inflammation, phlegmon presents with inflammatory signs: dolor (localized pain), calor (increase local tissue temperature), rubor (skin redness/hyperemia), tumor (either clear or non-clear bordered tissue swelling), and functio laesa (diminish affected function).

edit. note: While the g is silent in the word phlegm and phlegmy, it is voiced in the words phlegmatic and phlegmon (otherwise you could say that "when life gives you phlegmons, make phlegmonade.")