For all the good it does me as a teacher, I always train my disciples, er, students, to use context and prior knowledge to better understand what they read. In my own case, brimming with excitement over expanding my vocabulary to include "Portmanteau," I though I had discovered a new one in the word "grunion." Mr Dumbass, (an angrier,stupider version of Mr. PotatoHead) yours truly, thought it meant "Ground Onion" or something to that effect. No, in fact, grunion isn't a portmanteau. A grunion is a fish that lays its eggs on sandy beaches, and burries them under the sand. In a few days, the tide washes the flailing and flopping larvae back into the ocean from whence they ultimately came. Before you forget, get a growl in your throat, find a loved one, and chase them around, saying and growling nothing but the word "grunion."
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Grunions of The Portmanteau
In my last blog, my limited vocabulary failed me once more and the dear dreaded genius handed me the dunce cap once more, along with the definition of the word "Portmanteau" which, according to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, is used to describe a linguistic blend, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their sounds and meanings into one word. When I asked my friends, they came up with examples ranging from the vulgar "shart," to the zoological "coydog." Wikipedia, all hail Wikipedia, has a decent list of them, but I've already covered the funniest in my uninformed, not so humble opinion.
For all the good it does me as a teacher, I always train my disciples, er, students, to use context and prior knowledge to better understand what they read. In my own case, brimming with excitement over expanding my vocabulary to include "Portmanteau," I though I had discovered a new one in the word "grunion." Mr Dumbass, (an angrier,stupider version of Mr. PotatoHead) yours truly, thought it meant "Ground Onion" or something to that effect. No, in fact, grunion isn't a portmanteau. A grunion is a fish that lays its eggs on sandy beaches, and burries them under the sand. In a few days, the tide washes the flailing and flopping larvae back into the ocean from whence they ultimately came. Before you forget, get a growl in your throat, find a loved one, and chase them around, saying and growling nothing but the word "grunion."
For all the good it does me as a teacher, I always train my disciples, er, students, to use context and prior knowledge to better understand what they read. In my own case, brimming with excitement over expanding my vocabulary to include "Portmanteau," I though I had discovered a new one in the word "grunion." Mr Dumbass, (an angrier,stupider version of Mr. PotatoHead) yours truly, thought it meant "Ground Onion" or something to that effect. No, in fact, grunion isn't a portmanteau. A grunion is a fish that lays its eggs on sandy beaches, and burries them under the sand. In a few days, the tide washes the flailing and flopping larvae back into the ocean from whence they ultimately came. Before you forget, get a growl in your throat, find a loved one, and chase them around, saying and growling nothing but the word "grunion."
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