Word for Wednesday: Blog

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Our Word for Wednesday theme for July is portmanteau words.

A portmanteau word is made up of two or more existing words that have been blended together. The term was coined by Lewis Carrol in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There.

A portmanteau is a type of suitcase which had two compartments and so Carroll used it as a metaphor for a term that made of two separate words merged together.

In the novel, the character Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice: “You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

The prominence of technology and the internet in our lives has led to many portmanteau words being created, for example: 'pixel', 'emoticon', and 'vlog'. Our first portmanteau word of the month is blog.

A blog – like the one you are reading now – is a regularly updated webpage that is often written in a conversational style. In the early days of blogging, people often used blogs like an online journal in which to share news.

The word dates to 1998 and is a shortening of the 1993 ‘weblog’ which describes a log of each request received by a web server. 'Weblog' is a blend of the words ‘web’ (from ‘world wide web’) and ‘log’.


06 Jul 2022
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"I have just subscribed and look forward to continuing to use Spellzone. I have been really impressed with the program during the trial period and the students gave very positive feedback. Many thanks."

Teacher, International School, Geneva