“ad fontes!”
USA, 1937—informative material presented in an entertaining way at working-meetings (and later at other types of gatherings) organised by Shell Oil Company—a blend of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’
Read MoreAustralia—1897: the typical bushman—1915: the typical Australian private soldier—a blend of the male forenames ‘Bill’ and ‘Jim’, as often used of bushmen
Read Moreimpressively or shockingly big—a blend of ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’—apparently coined by Welsh novelist Berta Ruck in Wedding March (1938)
Read Morea menagerie of demons—UK, 1848—a blend of the nouns ‘demon’ and ‘menagerie’
Read Morean international athletic competition, modelled on the Olympic Games, for disabled athletes—UK, 1953—from the prefix ‘para-‘ in ‘paraplegic’ and ‘-lympics’ in ‘Olympics’—cf. early synonym ‘Paraplegic Games’
Read Morea drink of frothy milk, designed as an alternative to coffee for young children—also: a small cup of cappuccino—Australia, 1995—from ‘baby’ and ‘‑ccino’ in ‘cappuccino’
Read Morea humorous redefinition of an existing word or phrase, presented as a dictionary definition—USA, 1910—a blend of the adjective ‘daffy’ and of the noun ‘definition’
Read MoreUSA, 1871: a person who frequently uses or coins slang words and phrases—USA, 1926: a person who studies the use and historical development of slang—blend of the nouns ‘slang’ and ‘linguist’
Read MoreUK, 1856—a talisman associated with a woman—a woman likened to a talisman, especially a female sports player regarded as the leading representative of her team—alteration of ‘talisman’ with substitution of ‘woman’ for the element ‘‑man’
Read MoreUSA, 1995—a freelance videographer or photographer, characterised as being extremely aggressive in pursuing celebrities to video or photograph them—a blend of the nouns ‘stalker’ and ‘paparazzo’
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word histories 