english 2.0

tonight's playlist: The Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II, Elliot Smith - Either/Or, Rocky Votolato - A Brief History, Death Cab for Cutie - We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau
"...formed by combining both sounds and meanings from two or more words."

it's like onomatopoeia, but different. in fact, i think it's better because in french portmanteau sounds and looks like what it is.

i love this word/phenomenon, probably because i say stuff like that all the time, and now i finally feel justified. it's not like when i say something is "more better" as a joke but then, like "dude," it becomes part of my working vocabulary. what begins as a clever jibe ends up coming off as redundant and/or stupid.

no, a portmanteau is an impressive looking, great sounding, applicable label for what comes out of my mouth. a perfect example is my use of "ginormous" (giant + enormous) . i've been saying that consistently since college. it's pretty damn funny. i almost always got a chuckle out of others when describing someone's ass, teeth or hair as ginormous. it wasn't until my mother, in her infinite wisdom (seriously, she's a genius), pointed out that humongous = huge + monstrous (or tremendous) that i realized i wasn't so original anymore. ah, well, such is life.

another protmanteau that i love to use, which i believe is underused and therefore original, is "newsed." when my boyfriend bought his first car way back in 2000 it was a 1996 Acura Integra. he told me that he bought it "newsed" from Carmax.

newsed = new + used car. nice.

it's perfect because, while it is not a brand new vehicle, it's new to you and that's what really matters. you feel like a new person when you make a change like that. (keep in mind we lovingly referred to his 1982 Toyota Tercel-Corolla as "the bucket"). i bought my first and current car newsed. it's a 2004 toyota matrix and i purchased it from a honda dealership in 2004. it had 9,000 miles and a few chips in the paint, but it was completely new to me.

i once used newsed when talking to an internet sales manager that same year and he thought it was the bee's knees. i was surprised, but encouraged. if someone in the industry thinks this is not only a nifty word, but a viable addition to auto industry jargon and perhaps a worthwhile addition to the english lexicon, that's better than a wikipedia entry in my mind.

i'd love to see newsed gain popularity in our industry. pre-owned is an okay alternative to used, but it's such an obvious euphamism that i'm annoyed by it. plus it doesn't tell me anything more than used does, so why make the distinction? i think it's a decent ploy to take some of the punch out of the the used car salesman caricature. seriously, who wants to go to a used car dealership and deal with some greasy guy in a blazer that doesn't match his pants who is always trying to strong-arm someone into buying the worst car ever? not i. so i go to the pre-owned, or certified pre-owned, dealership and deal with a the same guy (give or take).

i think newsed could really revamp the whole idea of used car sales, especially in the internet age. there are tons of people like me, netizens if you will, that find things like "newsed" amusing and labels such as "portmanteau" interesting. we're the savvy, nerdy types who get jokes, use google as a verb, type like the dickens, and window shop for cars online. think about it.