Playing with Words: An Author Looks at Fun Oxymorons

by PeggySue Wells @PeggySueWells

Bulldozed by illness, I went to see the doctor.

“You have acute bronchitis,” the doctor diagnosed.

“As opposed to an ugly one?” I asked.

“Acute means ugly,” the doctor explained.

“Then why not call it that?”

“You’re feverish.” The doctor penned a prescription on a medical pad.

“Actually,” piped up my 12-year-old, “she does that to words. Don't ask her about asphalt.”

“Asphalt?” The doctor looked at me expectantly.

“Street language for constipation,” I outlined.

The doctor handed me the paper. “Get this prescription filled immediately. It’s the strongest antibiotic I’ve got.”

For wordsmiths, word play is second nature and fun. Such as forming oxymorons.

Where do New Words Come From? Portmanteau

by Lori Hatcher @LoriHatcher2

The endless scroll of commercial messages flashed across the screen in the periphery of the coffee shop where I was enjoying brunch—Medicare, an upcoming telethon, a new sitcom, and a documentary about Army paratroopers. 

Add to this the distraction of the new ezine that had just arrived in my email box, and you can understand why I was struggling to compose my latest blog post.

I decided to investigate a word I hadn’t heard since high school English class, but recently stumbled across, portmanteau.

The website LiteraryDevices.net defines the word portmanteau (pawrt-MAN-toh) as “a literary device in which two or more words are joined together to coin a new word. A portmanteau word is formed by blending parts of two or more words but it always refers to a single concept.” Unlike a compound word, it can have a completely different meaning from the words from which it was coined.