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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"This is a fantastic opportunity for our students!  I'm sure Spellzone will be invaluable in helping them to improve their spellings and therefore improve the quality of their writing in all subject areas!"

Teacher, High School, UK