Spot the meanderthalNew word: meanderthals
It's nice to be in at the birth of a new word. A chum recently mentioned that he's sick and tired of slow-moving pedestrians who suddenly change direction and cause chaos in crowded streets – he refers to them as 'meanderthals'.
Spot the meanderthal
Spot the meanderthal
5 comments:
Does this count as one of JD's famous portmanteau's?
Yes indeed! And I can't believe that someone has actually learnt something through our blog... brilliant.
Incidentally, you can also use the plural 'portmanteaux' - which I feel is much classier.
Have you ever submitted your words to http://www.verbotomy.com/blog/ before?
All well and good, JD, but what about that redundant apostrophe in portmanteau's, hmmm?
(That'll learn these youngsters to pick up their elders for using the subject instead of the object when referring to JD and I/me!)
Not that I'm bitter.
I didn't want to make Sarah feel bad by pointing out her 'error'! It's all right for me to pick on you, Apus, you're a professional...
Anyway, wasn't there a trend of using an apostrophe when forming the plural of foreign words? Fowler's calls this the non-possessive 's and says "it may occasionally be used... as a device for avoiding confusion".
I suppose the non-possessive 's can be used to indicate that a particular word is a plural, rather than a singular that just happens to end in s. Especially useful with words that may be unfamiliar to many - such as recent loan words.
Do I believe this? Not necessarily, but I do feel I should stick up for Sarah...
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