Today’s Rhymes With Orange:

Hilary Price is fond of phrasal overlap portmanteaus (POPs), as in this case: the Doctor Seuss title Horton Hears a Who overlapped with the odd compound whodunit, referring to detective mysteries.

From the NYT on the 13th, in “For Enclave of Rebel Artists, Much in Life Was Free, but Not Real Estate” (by Elvire Camus):

Illegal squats in Paris usually have a short life. After one year, perhaps two, they are either shut down or transformed into legal art centers with the support of the city’s Socialist government. But not La Miroiterie, which has been a renowned artists’ squat for the past 14 years.

… Over the years, many artists lived and worked in the “squart” (a contraction of the English words “squat” and “art”), and contributed to creating its identity.

Squart is an easy portmanteau, and indeed it’s been created from squat + art before; here’s an Urban Directory entry (unedited) by britches from 11/8/06:

A Squatted Art Show (squat + art); A free art openeing in and abandoned or ‘squatted’ building; A permanant free gallery in an squatted space

In New Orleans Feb 2004 and Asheville 2005 people put together squart shows in abandoned buildings and had openings where they let the public view the art and eat food an drink in the squatted space for the night, for free, of course.

UD also has (perhaps fanciful) instances of squart involving either squirt or fart as contributors: squirt + fart, squirt + quart, squelch + fart,  squat + fart.

In a paronoid dream in today’s Zippy, Griffy fixates on a phrase, which he then repeats like a mantra (as he’s given to doing to found phrases every so often):

Vampire Manga Dog condo: savor it!

Meanwhile, the title, “Orlando your dreams” is a phrasal overlap portmanteau: Orlando + land o’ your dreams.

Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm, with two seals:

The cartoon turns on the ambiguity of seal — the device or design, or the animal. Then it depends on the existence of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval:

So it also turns on the ambiguity between the proper name Good Housekeeping (name of the magazine) and the phrase good housekeeping ‘keeping house well’ (with a common noun head). But in the cartoon, the seal on the left is a no-good housekeeper. (I’m guessing that Mike Peters, the cartoonist, intended the seal on the left to be male and the one on the right to be female. Gender roles appear in surprising places.)

The pun has something of the flavor of a phrasal overap portmanteau, but can’t be exactly analyzed that way: it’s essentially no-good housekeeper + Good Housekeeping Seal (of Approval).

In a letter (from Doug W.) to Instinct magazine in the April/May 2012 issue:

That hairy hunk in your fashion spread [“Winter Waters” Dec. 2012/Jan. 2013 ...] was scruffalicious.

Just an ordinary portmanteau (scruffy + delicious, referring to a handsome man with a scruffy face),  but it allows me to bring up images of scruffalicious guys.

(On this blog, several shots of scruffalicious guys, most kissing: here, here, and here. And on AZBlogX, huge numbers. I’m fond of the look.)

The guy in the Instinct fashion spread was model Carson Kelley:

Kelley is at the upper edge of scruffiness, bordering on beardedness.

Also in the current issue of Instinct is a letter from James C. extolling the cover model from Dec,/Jan., Courtney Grant:

(The cover of the current issue has a cute scruffalicious couple, Jeremy England and Brandon Nist.)

Now on to the scruffalicious famous, starting with my favorite, Jake Gyllenhaal. There are three shots of him in an earlier posting of mine, “Gay cowboys” (a relatively bearded one, in which he’s wearing an “I Was a Gay Cowboy Before It Was Cool” t-shirt, and two shirtless, plainly scruffy shots). Now another one:

Jacob Benjamin “Jake” Gyllenhaal (… born December 19, 1980) is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at the age of ten. Following his first lead role in 1999′s October Sky, he starred in the indie cult hit Donnie Darko (2001), in which he played a psychologically troubled teenager alongside his older sister, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. In 2002, he starred in another indie film, The Good Girl, alongside actress Jennifer Aniston. In 2004, he appeared in the science-fiction film The Day After Tomorrow, portraying a student caught in a cataclysmic global cooling event.

Gyllenhaal then played against type as a frustrated Marine in Jarhead (2005). The same year, his role as Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain earned him critical acclaim. (link)

Then Jensen Ackles:

Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor and director. He is known for his roles in television as Eric Brady in Days of our Lives, which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as well as Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel and Jason Teague in Smallville. Ackles currently stars as Dean Winchester on the CW series Supernatural. (link)

From back a bit, Pernell Roberts:

Pernell Elven Roberts, Jr. (May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010) was an American stage, movie and television actor, as well as a singer. In addition to guest starring in over 60 television series, he was best known for his roles as Ben Cartwright’s eldest son, Adam Cartwright, on the western series Bonanza, a role he played from 1959 until 1965 — and as chief surgeon Dr. John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979–1986). (link)

Then moving away from actors: Adam Levine, shirtless, scruffy, and displaying his armpits:

Adam Noah Levine (born March 18, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, entrepreneur and occasional actor, best known as the lead vocalist and front man of pop rock band Maroon 5. (link)

Finally, moving away from the U.S. and passing up the obvious George Michael of “I Want Your Sex”: Grant Bowler.

Grant Bowler is a New Zealand-born Australian actor who has worked in American, Australian and New Zealand films and television.

He is known for playing the role of Constable Wayne Patterson in Blue Heelers and also appeared as Wilhelmina Slater’s love interest Connor Owens in Ugly Betty. (link)

A variety of types here, all using scruffiness to enhance their masculine presentation. Each scruffalicious in his own way.

(There are endlessly many more. It’s a style.)

Yesterday it was “Scruffalicious”, with photos of 7 handsome men (in the public eye in one way or another) who sometimes appear with scruffy faces. Then it occurred to me to wonder why the portmanteau wasn’t spelled scruffilicious, with an I that would represent the Y of scruffy and also the I of delicious. Well, it turns out that this spelling occurs, but the spelling with A predominates heavily: scruffalicious with 436,000 raw ghits, scruffilicious with 69,500. And the hits scarcely overlap: scruffilicious pulls up a large number of dogs, plus hot young actors and singers; scruffalicious yields a number of older men, plus a different set of young actors, singers, and models. This presentation of the male body is very much in style, but under two different spellings.

First, four more scruffAlicious men: The King of Scruff himself, George Michael; two further men from the early days of Scruff Style, Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas in Miami Vice; and Robert Downey, Jr., who appears clean-shaven, scruffy, and with light beard and mustache, depending on the occasion.

Michael:

George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panagiòtou … 25 June 1963) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Michael rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley. His first solo single, “Careless Whisper”, was released when he was still in the duo and sold about six million copies worldwide.

As one of the world’s best-selling music artists, Michael has sold more than 100 million records worldwide as of 2010. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and made several records and achievements in the United States. (link)

Johnson:

Donnie Wayne “Don” Johnson (born December 15, 1949)[1] is an American actor and recording artist perhaps best known for his lead role as James “Sonny” Crockett in the 1980s television series, Miami Vice. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges. Johnson is a Golden Globe winning actor for his role in Miami Vice, a winner of the APBA Offshore World Cup, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and director. (link)

Thomas:

Philip Michael Thomas (born May 26, 1949) is an American actor. Thomas’s most famous role is that of detective Ricardo Tubbs on the hit 1980s TV series Miami Vice. His first notable roles were in Coonskin (1975) and opposite Irene Cara in the 1976 film Sparkle. After his success in Miami Vice, Thomas appeared in numerous made-for-TV movies and advertisements for telephone psychic services. He served as a spokesperson for cell phone entertainment company Nextones, and supplied the voice for the character Lance Vance on the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. (link)

And Downey:

Here, Downey is on the borderline between scruffy and bearded.

Robert John Downey, Jr. (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor who made his screen debut at the age of five, appearing in his father’s film Pound. He has appeared in roles associated with the Brat Pack, such as Less Than Zero and Weird Science. Other films he has starred in include Air America, Soapdish, and Natural Born Killers. [and, notably, on Ally McBeal on tv] (link)

Now to six men labeled scruffIlicious on the net, mostly repeatedly and sometimes with enormous admiration. I’ll start with two presenting themselves with light scruff, more like five o’clock shadow or just past it. From Wikipedia on this sort of facial hair and on maintaining stylish stubble:

Stubble is the regrowth of shaven hair, when it is short and has a rough, abrasive texture.

During the 1980s, facial stubble on men became fashionable, partly due to being popularized by the singer George Michael, as well as the popular television show Miami Vice. This was also known as the “designer stubble” and was groomed, shaped, and maintained as a regular beard. Electric clippers can be used to maintain stubble on the face as a men’s fashion style. Companies such as Wahl and Philips manufacture trimmers that are designed to maintain facial stubble. Removing the guard from most trimmers will give the user a stubbly look.

The British term five o’clock shadow refers to beard stubble that is visible late in the day, usually around 5 o’clock, on men who have shaved their faces that morning. … The term was popularized in the 1930s in the marketing department of the Gem Safety Razor Company. While dreaming up a new advertising campaign, they decided to try and convince previously unsuspecting men that they suffered from ‘ugly, afternoon beard growth’ and that this could only be countered by the purchase and use of ‘Gem Micromatic Blades’. Needing a snappy name for this late-afternoon ailment, which would of course bar sufferers from any genteel ‘five o’clock dinner’, they chose to call it ‘five o’clock shadow’.

On to “Daniel Jackson”, a fictional character played by Michael Shanks. Here’s Shanks (who mostly appears clean-shaven) with very light scruff:

On Jackson:

Daniel Jackson, Ph.D., is a fictional character in the Canadian-American military science fiction television series Stargate SG-1, which is about a military team exploring the galaxy via a network of alien transportation devices. Daniel Jackson is first introduced in the 1994 film Stargate, and is played by James Spader. In the ensuing television series the character is played by Michael Shanks. Daniel Jackson is a civilian archeologist and linguist, who works with the Stargate military project and therefore holds no military ranking. (link)

Fans seem to routinely refer to Shanks *as* Daniel Jackson. On Shanks:

Michael Garrett Shanks (born December 15, 1970) is a Canadian actor who achieved international fame for his role as Dr. Daniel Jackson in the long-running Canadian-American military science fiction television series Stargate SG-1. (link)

Then James Kirk (not Capt. Kirk from Star Trek), with somewhat heavier scruff:

James Nichol Kirk (born May 2, 1986) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his role of Sebastian in She’s the Man. (link)

Then to the star of this set of six, Robert (or Rob) Pattinson, shown here twice (in one intense shot and one smiling one), but with significant scruff in both cases:

He often appears clean-shaven (and shirtless).

Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson (born 13 May 1986) is an English actor, model, musician and producer. Pattinson started his career by playing Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He later landed the leading role of Edward Cullen in the film adaptations of the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer, and came to worldwide fame, thus establishing himself among the highest paid and most bankable actors in Hollywood. (link)

Speaking of shirtless, here’s scruffy Charlie Hunnam in a shirtless shot:

Charles Matthew “Charlie” Hunnam (born 10 April 1980) is an English actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles as Pete Dunham in the film Green Street Hooligans, Nathan Maloney in the Channel 4 drama Queer as Folk, Jackson “Jax” Teller in the FX series Sons of Anarchy, and Lloyd Haythe in the Fox comedy series Undeclared. (link)

And from the world of song, David Cook:

David Roland Cook (born December 20, 1982) is an American rock singer-songwriter, who rose to fame after winning the seventh season of the reality television show American Idol. Prior to Idol he released an independent album entitled Analog Heart, followed by his post-Idol major-label debut David Cook which was released on November 18, 2008 and has since been certified platinum by the RIAA. (link)

Finally, Taylor Kitsch, who appears clean-shaven in an AZBlogX posting on underwear models, now seen with scruff:

Taylor Kitsch (born April 8, 1981) is a Canadian actor and model. He is known for his role as Tim Riggins in the NBC television series Friday Night Lights and for his role as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). He also starred in the films John Carter, Battleship, and Savages (all in 2012). (link)

From Maureen Dowd’s NYT op-ed column (“Can We Get Hillary Without the Foolery?”) today:

She was supposed to go off to a spa, rest and get back in shape after her grueling laps around the world. But instead she’s a tornado of activity, speaking at global women’s conferences in D.C. and New York; starting to buck-rake on the speaking circuit; putting out a video flipping her position to support gay marriage; and signing a lucrative deal for a memoir on world affairs — all as PACs spring up around her, Bill Clinton and Carville begin to foment, and Chelsea lands on the cover of this week’s Parade, talking about how “unapologetically and unabashedly” biased she is about her mother’s future.

I was stopped short for a while by buck-rake, but then I figured it out: buck-raking is attested, so buck-rake could be a back-formation from it; and muckrake / muckraking is probably involved, so there’s likely to be a portmanteau with buck ‘dollar’ in there.

From AHD4 (2000):

The practice of accepting large sums of money for speaking to business or special interest groups, especially when viewed as compromising the objectivity of journalists. [Blend of buck and muckraking, gerund of muckrake.]

And from BuzzWhack: The Buzzword Compliant Dictionary, a less judgmental definition that seems to correspond better to current usage:

buck-rake: To hold a political fund-raiser. “He skipped the debate in order to buck-rake for his campaign.” (Nominated by Max Matthews)

Three more recent examples (showing separated and solid spellings as well as hyphenated):

The ex-Massachusetts governor [Mitt Romney], after raising money in the Hamptons on Friday, was set to buck rake on Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod. (link)

Jerry Brown in town to buck-rake at his old N. St. apt. Cocktails at 6. $10,000-a-plate dinner to follow. (link)

Mitt Romney plans to attend a fund-raising breakfast at the New York Hilton on Friday and may look to buckrake further when he returns to the city next week. (link)

From various people on Facebook, this WPA poster with the compound fag bag:

The fag here is the fag of cigarette smoking, though it turns out that there are now two notable uses of fag bag involving the sexual slur fag: for reference to a fanny pack and as a personal slur.

The poster comes from a WPA public art project:

The Work Projects Administration (WPA) Poster Collection consists of 907 posters produced from 1936 to 1943 by various branches of the WPA. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia, with the strongest representation from California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. (link)

The silkscreened poster above is described in a Library of Congress document as being the work of Louis Hirschman, created in Pennsylvania between 1941 and 1943, and characterizes it as a

Poster encouraging use of “fag bag” for disposal of matches, showing stylized Japanese soldier standing behind a tree with a match, with the rising sun in the background.

The connection to cigarettes is through matches, the most common use of matches in matchbooks being to light cigarettes. If these fag bags were also used to collect cigarette butts, the connection would be even stronger. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any information about what these fag bags looked like, how they were used, or who used them in what contexts. Nor do I fully understand how matches would aid the Axis.

We find the poster funny today, especially if we’re American, because of the intrusion of the sexual slur fag, which can contaminate any word with FAG in it, even food names (see “Fag food”).

But the fag in the poster has nothing to do with fag ‘homosexual male’. From OED2u under fag n. 4:

Etymology:  Abbreviation of fag-end n. [‘the last part or remnant of anything, after the best has been used; the extreme end’]
slang.
a. The fag-end of a cigarette [‘cigarette butt’].
b. A cheap cigarette.
c. Any cigarette (the current use).

The OED’s cites are all British except possibly for a 1945 cite from Lou Shelly’s Hepcats Jive Talk Dictionary. That would accord with current impressions that fag ‘cigarette’ is a specifically British usage — a fact that makes the (decidedly American) poster above even more mysterious.

On to other uses of fag bag, starting with the fanny pack. From a site devoted to a particular product designed for carrying small firearms:

For covert carriage of a pistol the Fast Action Gunbag ["FagBag" or, "Fanny Pack"] can be a good option.

Illustrated here:

(A second photo shows him putting a pistol in the bag.)

Here, fanny pack and fagbag are simply treated as synonyms.

Digression on fanny packs, from Wikipedia:

A fanny pack (US, Canada), belt pack (US), belly bag (US), Buffalo pouch (US), hip sack (US), phany pack (US), waist bag (or waistpack) (US), hip pack (UK), bum bag (UK, Australia, Oceania, Ireland), or moon bag (South Africa), is a small fabric pouch secured with a zipper and worn by use of a strap around the hips or waist.

The name “fanny pack” is derived from the fact that they were traditionally worn facing the rear above the buttocks, for which “fanny” is a slang term in the United States.

Despite the name, fanny packs are often worn on the hip or (as in the photo) in front, rather than in back.

And despite their popularity with hikers and outdoorsmen, fanny packs have become associated with gay men, primarily because bags of all sorts (except shopping bags, duffel bags, gym bags, and backpacks) carried or worn by men — man purses, canvas bags, messenger bags, and fanny packs — are seen as unmasculine (because they are associated with women); men have wallets or carry business accessories like briefcases and attache cases.

Then it turns out that some people associate fanny packs with gay men because of the association of the buttocks with anal sex, which is widely seen as a specifically gay thing; see this foaming piece (from 4/2/05) on male fashion:

Why are there still people wearing fag bags? Ok the 80′s are over…we are not wearing biker shorts for the hell of it and women are not wearing enough make up to make them look like cheap 80′s B movie whores. Guys especially; dude all the other guys think you are gay ok, so while you are prouncing around in the mall acting like Mr. big shot with your purple or black leather fag bag just remember that every guy that is passing by you is silently calling you a fag. Another thing, why is it that so many body builders wear this crap? If I were gonna work that hard to impress chics, I’m not gonna go and ruin it by wearing a fag bag, so if you have been working out for years and the only thing you get is a smile from guys that pass by you..it’s time to drop the fag bag. Have you ever seen those fat guys with the hot chics? I bet they’re not wearing fag bags. In my opinion, they call it fanny pack because if you are a guy and you wear one of these long enough they’ll be packing your fanny with something besides a bag.

[Prouncing is a very common error for pronouncing, but here it seems to be a portmanteau of prancing and pouncing. Chics as a misspelling of chicks was new to me, but you can find more occurrences.]

So the fanny pack becomes associated with gay men, which facilitates the rude names fag bag / fagbag and queer bag / queerbag (also attested) for it. Fag bag has the edge over queer bag, because of its rhyme.

Now to the insult use, which combines fag and douchebag (for a different combination, see my posting on douchefag, here). There’s a “quiz” cite asking “Are you cool or are you a fag bag?”. I answered the questions and got this response:

You Scored as Fag bag
Ha Ha your Gay

And on Urban Dictionary fagbag and queerbag are glossed variously as ‘extreme fag, total and complete fag, someone who embodies all that is queer, too gay for their own good’. Like this prouncing, shirtlifting queer:

One UD contributor nails the source, in an entry that treats fag-bag (the third possible spelling) as having the libfix -bag:

a versatile suffix added to many offensive words to describe a person. classically used with root word “douche”, modern insult artists now utilize it with other more offensive root words.

douche-bag. fuck-bag. cock-bag. fag-bag. ass-bag. shit-bag. cunt-bag. sack-bag. etc.

So -bag now can function as an intensifying suffix.

We’re a long way from WWII fag bags.

Periodically I’ve posted the Bizarro Sunday Punnies, always a set of three pun panels. Last Sunday’s (#29) led with one that amused me a lot:

The title is a punning portmanteau: sturgeon (the fish) + Surgeon General (of the U.S.). The Surgeon General gives advice on matters of public health, and at least one SG has campaigned aggressively against cigarette smoking. So then we have the pun on smoking (cigarettes) and smoking ‘curing or preserving (food) by exposure to (wood) smoke’, a procedure often applied to sturgeon flesh.

From Victor Steinbok, this B.C. cartoon (from 4/16/13) by Johnny Hart:

This is intended to be a portmanteau both verbally and visually. Verbally, Mercedes-Benz overlapping with benzene. Visually, a combination of the symbol for the Mercedes-Benz company and a simplified version of the carbon ring structure for benzene.

The two symbols:

From the first, the cartoon takes the three-pointed star; from the second, a simplified version of the carbon hexagon in the ring structure.

On the company:

Mercedes-Benz … is a multinational division of the German manufacturer Daimler AG, and the brand is used for luxury automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The name first appeared in 1926 under Daimler-Benz but traces its origins to Daimler’s 1901 Mercedes and to Karl Benz’s 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, which is widely regarded as the first automobile. (link)

On Kekulé’s carbon ring for benzene, see this Wikipedia entry, which gives both the more complex version above and the extremely simplified version used in the cartoon.

(I’m not sure what the alcohol diagram is doing in the cartoon.)

On the comic strip:

B.C. is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Johnny Hart. Set in prehistoric times, it features a group of cavemen and anthropomorphic animals from various geologic eras. B.C. made its newspaper debut on February 17, 1958, and was among the longest-running strips still written and drawn by its original creator when Hart died at his drawing board in Nineveh, New York on April 7, 2007.

Now, the strip is produced by Hart’s grandsons Mason Mastroianni (head writer and cartoonist) and Mick Mastroianni (writer for both B.C. and Hart’s other creation, The Wizard of Id), and Hart’s daughter Perri (letterer and colorist). (link)

A portmant is a clipped portmanteau. There aren’t all that many of them, but here’s one that came to my attention today. It starts with the portmanteau zoobiquity, a somewhat over-clever (and opaque, but certainly memorable) combination of zoo + ubiquity. And goes on to zoob.

Zoobiquity is the title of a 2012 book by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz & Kathryn Bowers (website here) — subtitled “The astonishing connection between humans and animal health” — and a reference to an assortment of enterprises springing from the book, referred to on the website by the clipping zoob: “zoob facts to ponder” (dogs faint, that is, suffer vasovagal syncopes), “zoob news”, etc.

From the website, about the book:

We may think our problems are uniquely human. But animals and humans get the same diseases. How might we better understand human health and illness if we harnessed knowledge from veterinarians, the doctors that take care of other animals? Zoobiquity explores how jaguar breast cancer, dolphin diabetes, flamingo heart attacks, canine PTSD — and more — are transforming human medicine.

My iTunes woke me this morning with “The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye” (from Firesign Theatre’s How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All (1969)). It’s packed full of playfulness, silliness, and absurdity, much of it linguistic.

A sampling of material from the radio show, in sequence from this episode.

1. Silliness.

NICK: I was sitting in my office on that drizzly afternoon listening to the monotonous staccato of rain on my desktop and reading my name on the glass of my office door. “Regnad Kcin”.

The rain on his desktop. His name backwards on the door.

2. Hippie times and a subtle ambiguity.

NICK: I didn’t hear him enter, (creaky door/walking) but my nostrils flared at the smell of his perfume… Pyramid Patchouli. There was only one joker in L.A. sensitive enough to wear that scent and I had to find out who he was.

First, patchouli, evoking hippies, lots of pot smoking, flower power, peace signs, sitar music, incense, crystals, etc. Pot references abound in the episode; some will be noted below. On patchouli:

Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin …) is a species of plant from the genus Pogostemon. It is a bushy herb of the mint family, with erect stems, reaching two or three feet (about 0.75 metre) in height and bearing small, pale pink-white flowers. The plant is native to tropical regions of Asia, and is now extensively cultivated in China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as West Africa.

The heavy and strong scent of patchouli has been used for centuries in perfumes, and more recently in incense, insect repellents, and alternative medicines. The word derives from [a Tamil expression meaning ‘green leaf’].

Then: “the only joker in L.A. sensitive enough to wear that scent”. At first, this seems to be picking out someone known to Nick, but then it turns out to be a description of an unknown person; this is the distinction between referential and attributive uses, respectively, of definite descriptions. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

[Keith] Donnellan (1966) … argued that definite descriptions can be used in (at least) two different ways. On a so-called attributive use, a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ is used to express a proposition equivalent to ‘Whatever is uniquely F is G’. For example, on seeing murder victim Smith’s badly mutilated corpse, Detective Brown might say “The murderer of Smith is insane” thereby communicating the thought that some unique individual murdered Smith and that whoever that individual is, he/she is insane. Alternatively, on a referential use, a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ is used to pick out a specific individual, x, and say of x that x is G. For example, suppose Jones is on trial for Smith’s murder and is behaving quite strangely at the defense table. I point at Jones and say, “The murderer of Smith is insane”, thereby communicating the thought that Jones is insane (whether or not Jones is the actual murderer).

3. Rocky Rococo.

ROCKY: Good afternoon, Mr…. Danger. I’m Rocky Rococo.

An allusion to Beatles music, in this case “Rocky Raccoon”, from the White Album (1968); the song will reappear shortly. In addition, there’s an allusion to Rocky Road ice cream, which also cmes up later in this episode.

4. A Spoonerism.

NICK: Why, that’s nothing but a two bit ring from a Cracker Back Jox.

That is, Cracker Jack Box. This passes by without comment.

5. Pseudonyms.

ROCKY: Worthless?! Ha! Ha! Ha! (cough cough) Not to Melanie Haber!
NICK: Melanie Haber?
ROCKY: You may remember her as… Audrey Farber?
NICK: Audrey Farber?
ROCKY: Susan Underhill?
NICK: Susan Underhill?
ROCKY: How about… Betty Jo Bialowski! (organ fwah)
NICK: (thinking) Betty Jo Bialowski! I hadn’t heard that name since college. Everyone knew her as Nancy.

(On pseudonyms, see this posting.)

“Rocky Raccoon” again:

Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy.

6. An absurdist frat house.

NICK: It was Pig Night at the Om Mani Padme Sigma House.

This combines the Sanskrit mantra “Om mani padme hum” with Greek-letter naming patterns for college fraternities and sororities (as in the fraternities Alpha Gamma Sigma, Phi Beta Sigma, and Phi Kappa Sigma).

7. An exploited idiom.

ROCKY: Danger! (running away) You haven’t seen the last of me!
NICK: No, but the first of you turns my stomach!

The idiom is to see the last of, to which Nick counterposes the unidiomatic (but entirely comprehensible) the first of.

8. The story and the story-tellers.

NICK: Four hours later I parked my car in the carriage house and (cornstarch footsteps) walked up a grey gravel driveway between a line of dwarf maples towards the pillared entrance of the Same Mansion. It had been snowing in Santa Barbara ever since the top of the page and I had to shake the cornstarch off my mukluks as I lifted the heavy obsidian doorknocker.
… CATHERWOOD: All right, come in out of the cornstarch and dry your mukluks by the fire. (fire/cellophane/door close) Let me introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
NICK: No, let me introduce myself. I am Nick Danger.
CATHERWOOD: If you’re so smart, why don’t you pick up your cues faster?
NICK: Are those my cues?
CATHERWOOD: Yes, and they must be dry by now. Why don’t you pull them up out of the cellophane before they scorch. (stop cellophane)

Throughout the episode, the characters go back and forth between being characters in the main story and actors in a radio play.

(As a bonus, there are expressions that the Firesign guys just liked for their sound: dwarf maple, mukluks, obsidian.)

9. Another ambiguity.

CATHERWOOD: Now, I assume you’ve come to see my mistress[,] Mr. Danger.
NICK: I don’t care about your private life or what his name is.

Catherwood’s line is read so as to allow Mr. Danger to be understood either as a vocative (Catherwood’s intent) or as an appositive to my mistress (Nick’s reading).

10. Chiasmus.

CATHERWOOD: You may wait here in the sitting room or you can sit here in the waiting room.

Switching wait and sit.

11. A terrible pun.

NICK: (thinking) There was something fishy about the butler. I think he was a Pisces, probably working for scale.

Pun on scale: scale of a fish (evoked by fishy and Pisces) or scale in the idiom to work for scale.

12. Yet another ambiguity.

NANCY: (muffled) Nick, we can’t talk here.
NICK: (muffled) We can, um…
NANCY: (muffled) We can’t talk here!
NICK: (muffled) What do you mean we can’t talk here?!
NANCY: (muffled) We can’t…!
NICK: (muffled) Oh. You’re right. We can’t. What should we do?
NANCY: (muffled) Follow me. This way.

Can’t ‘be unable to’ (which is the case in this scene) vs. can’t roughly ‘mustn’t, shouldn’t’ (which is what “we can’t talk here” would ordinarily convey.

13. Another terrible pun.

NICK: (sobbing) Catherwood. Catherwood, can’t you see you’re upsetting Nancy? (Nancy blowing nose) Leave us alone.
CATHERWOOD: Well, how much would you like, sir? Five hundred? A thousand? I could…

Clear in the spelling, but of course the scene is spoken, and leave us alone and leave us a loan are homophones.

14. Pot pun.

CATHERWOOD: Rococo! You slimy blackmailer. How did you get in here? You don’t have a key!
ROCKY: No, only half a key.
CATHERWOOD: What?
ROCKY: I had to split it with the sound effects man.

That’s key for locking and unlocking a door vs. key ‘kilo(gram) (of pot)’ — a clipping. And note Rocky shifting from a character in the story to an actor in the radio play.

15. Phrasal overlap portmanteau.

ROCKY: Oh, yeah? Didn’t you ever see Casablanca? Half a Key Largo?

Half a Key Largo = half a key [as in 14] + Key Largo [the film].

16. Another Beatles allusion.

NICK: [Lt.] Bradshaw would never listen to my story now. It had more holes in it than Albert Hall.

From “A Day in the Life”, on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album (1967):

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

17. An even worse pun. Catherwood the butler eventually splits in two (it’s complicated, but the important point is that a time machine is involved). Then:

YOUNG CATHERWOOD: … I wanted to give you the swellest honeymoon a girl ever had. We’re going to Greece!
NANCY: And swim the English Channel?
YOUNG CATHERWOOD: No, no. To Ancient Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang and stroked the wine-dark sea, in the temple by the moonlight, wa da doo dah…

Groan: Greece the country, to grease ‘spread with grease’ (as for swimming the Channel). The quotation that Catherwood drifts into — he’s a decidedly asociative thinker — is from Lord Byron’s “The Isles of Greece”.

18. Another pot pun.

OLD CATHERWOOD: Why don’t we sing something?
YOUNG CATHERWOOD: Well, I’ve forgotten the key.
OLD CATHERWOOD: That’s all right, I’ve got a lid out in the car.

This time it’s musical key vs. key ‘kilo’.

There’s a whole lot more. Quite something to start the day with.

On Wednesday the Stanford QUEST group (queer staff and faculty) had our monthly happy hour, this time at Tacolicious in Palo Alto, a Mexican restaurant that not long ago replaced the Indian fusion restaurant Mantra (which succeeded the Japanese fusion restaurant Higashi West, which succeeded Old Uncle Gaylord’s Kosher Ice Cream Parlour, which I remember fondly from 30 years ago). (Restaurant turnover in Palo Alto is scandalous.)

Tacolicious is not just a taco place, but something trendier and more inventive. And crowded. And very noisy (probably by design, since the conversion from Mantra involved tearing out the entire interior of the restaurant and installing lots of reflective surfaces; noisy makes a restaurant “hot”).

This posting is going to be about the restaurant’s name. But first more on the place itself.

The Palo Alto restaurant is the newest of three branches of the restaurant. A map and some ad copy from the Tacolicious website:

  (#1)

Every Tacolicious location has its own personality. At our original location in the Marina, look up: the four of spades is curiously stuck to the ceiling. (Inquire within for this story of love and magic.) In the Mission, where a sunny enclosed deck is the perfect place to enjoy a cold margarita, we pay homage to Lalo, lime squeezer extraordinaire, with a vintage juicer collection. And in Palo Alto, the massive Paul Madonna mural is so stunning that you might feel you’ve been whisked away to Atotonilco in Jalisco, Mexico, home of one of our favorite tequila distilleries.

Each location has its own menu. For Palo Alto:

(Click on the menu to embiggen it.)

The snacks are very good. The squid, for example, is wonderfully tender, not at all rubber-band-like. And there’s a large selection of things to drink. (Note the chupitos on the menu — alcholic drinks traditionally served in shot glasses. The Tickle Me Telmo is linguistically notable; the name playfully combines the children’s toy Tickle Me Elmo with the liquor tequila.)

The QUEST folks were pleased with the food and entertained by the decor, but less happy with the noise, which made it hard for us to talk.

In case you haven’t experienced the taco — not all my readers are geographically or culturally close to Mexico — here’s the short version from Wikipedia, plus a photo of a varied set of tacos:

A taco … is a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, pork, chicken, seafood, vegetables and cheese, allowing for great versatility and variety. A taco is generally eaten without utensils and is often accompanied by garnishes such as salsa, avocado or guacamole, cilantro, tomatoes, minced meat, onions and lettuce.

Etymology: According to the Real Academia Española, publisher of Diccionario de la Lengua Española, the word taco describes a typical Mexican dish of a maize tortilla folded around food (“Tortilla de maíz enrollada con algún alimento dentro, típica de México”). The original sense of the word is of a “plug” or “wad” used to fill a hole (“Pedazo de madera, metal u otra materia, corto y grueso, que se encaja en algún hueco”).

… The taco predates the arrival of Europeans in Mexico.

(#2)

Now, the name Tacolicious, which looks like a straightforward portmanteau of taco and delicious — except that -licious has developed a life of its own as a libfix playfully denoting or connoting excellence. From a 2009 Language Log posting of mine on “Liciousness:

On her Fritinancy blog, Nancy Friedman has recently posted (under the heading “the tastiest suffix”) an inventory of playful -licious brand names and brand descriptors, from Bake-a-Licious through Zombielicious. The -licious words come up every so often on Language Log, starting with 2006 postings by me (here) and Ben Zimmer (here), and going on with additional examples in 2007 (here) and this year (here).

From my 2006 posting:

there are cites of babelicious and blackalicious from 1992, which seems to have been a particularly morpholicious year. The larger point is that -Vlicious words are likely to have been invented independently on many occasions, as portmanteaus, leading eventually to the emergence of the jocular suffix. Some innovations in language have no clear single moment of creation, but arise as natural re-workings of the material of a language, by many different hands.

More recently, on this blog I’ve looked at Zippylicious names (names that Zippy the Pinhead or Bill Griffith find especially savory) — here and here – and on men who are scruffalicious (here) or scuffilicious (here). And on AZBlogX, some material on men described as twinkalicious (with various spellings); more G-rated material on such men will come in this blog.

Rob Partington points me to recent stories on the 17-year cicadas, under the heading swarmageddon (swarm + Armageddon) — a topical portmanteau. That led me to the preposterous shawarmageddon, involving the food shawarma.

A few cites:

[Philadelphia Inquirer site 5/8/13] Swarmageddon: Rise of ‘Brood II’ cicadas (link)

[NPR story of 4/1/13] It’s Almost Cicada Time! Help Radiolab Track #Swarmageddon (link)

[Yummy Math site, for kids] Cicada swarmaggedon: Most of the life cycle of the Magicicada Septendecim is spent underground. Then at 17 year intervals, these cicadas emerge from the ground, climb deciduous trees, molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die. (link)

(Note the common misspelling of Armageddon, as Armaggedon, in the third one. The writer knows there’s a double consonant in there — but where?)

Then came shawarmageddon, a “dinner in a bottle” from the MeatWater site. The product:

  (#1)

And the preposterous copy:

Chicken shawarma, tabboulleh (cardamom): Shawarma: Meat Stack of the Muslim World! Muslims invented advanced mathematics, suicide bombs and shawarma! Advanced Mathematics = Geometry = Conical Structures = Shawarma, the upside-down cone of meat strips that is grilled on all sides and shaved into a pita. Suicide Bombs = Nihilistic Worldview = Hatred of All Living Things = “Let’s roast that stupid camel” = Shawarma! At MeatWater, our SHAWARMAGEDDON flavor is made with chicken instead of camel but we put all our resentment of modernity and misanthropy into a survival beverage that will fuel your rage right down the throat of the Great Satan! When it’s time for Jihad, it’s time for SHWARMAGEDDON!

Hard to take this seriously.

On to shawarma (sometimes spelled shwarma). From Wikipedia:

Shawarma  … is a Levantine Arab meat preparation, where lamb, chicken, turkey, beef, veal, or mixed meats are placed on a spit (commonly a vertical spit in restaurants), and may be grilled for as long as a day. Shavings are cut off the block of meat for serving, and the remainder of the block of meat is kept heated on the rotating spit. Although it can be served in shavings on a plate (generally with accompaniments), shawarma also refers to a sandwich or wrap made with shawarma meat. Shawarma is eaten with tabbouleh, fattoush, taboon bread, tomato, and cucumber. Toppings include tahini, hummus, pickled turnips and amba. It is now a fast-food staple worldwide.

The preparation:

And a (lamb) shawarma sandwich:

I first came across shawarma as an Israeli street food sold in shops in American cities. It’s first cousin to kebabs (which are often sold in pita sandwiches), for instance the Turkish döner kebab (discussed here), and the Greek gyro(s) (also often sold in pita sandwiches). My local Israeli restaurant (Oren’s Hummus Shop on University Avenue in Palo Alto) offers beef/lamb kebabs, in pita or on their own, but not classic shawarma.

So much for food. Now back to -mageddon. Previous appearances on this blog:

12/22/08 “Portmansnow words“: snowmageddon

2/18/11 “Dingburg portmanteau”: Carmageddon

7/14/11 “For the Angelenos”: carmageddon, karmageddon, courtmageddon

7/19/11 “More -((m)a)geddon”: debtageddon, debtmageddon (plus armadebtdon, gaymageddon, goremageddon)

8/10/11 “-mageddons and -pocalypses”: Obamageddon, heatmageddon, birdmageddon, wordmageddon (with a link to Mark Peters)

5/11/12 “A topical -mageddon”: gaymageddon (with links to other blogs)

-((m)a)geddon is clearly working its way to becoming a libfix.

In a recent posting, I noted the portmanteau — or, possibly, use of a libfix -mageddon — in swarmageddon, as a name for this year’s cicada infestation in the eastern US (and picked up the entertaining shawarmageddon along the way). Now, as I’ve noted before, where there’s a -mageddon, there’s usually a -pocalypse as well. The combination swarm(a)pocalypse seems not to be attested, but this morning on ADS-L David Barnhart reported cicadapocalypse (with the two parts sharing the vowel /ǝ/ in pronunciation, the letter A in spelling). And there’s cicadageddon as well.

Barnhart’s attestation:

[BowiePatch (Bowie MD) newsletter] Within the next few weeks, hordes of insects will awaken from a 17-year slumber, crawl out of the earth, shed their skins, and set the entire East Coast abuzz in an plague-like event enthusiasts have dubbed the “Cicadapocalypse” after the bugs’ name, cicadas. (link)

Barnhart reported that the word was in Urban Dictionary, in an entry by Tim Kadich dated 5/21/07.

A few more recent cites from the media:

[Mother Nature Network] Cicadapocalypse 2013: What you need to know
Entomologists, rejoice! After a 17-year absence, the Brood II cicadas will overrun the East Coast in the coming months. (link)

[Huffington Post Science] Sing Fly Mate Die: The Cicadapocalypse Is Nigh (link)

[Philadelphia Inquirer website] This Interactive Cicada Map Will Help You Track The Cicadapocalypse (link)

I haven’t found cites for the combination cicadamageddon, but there’s a healthy number for cicadageddon, for example in the Twitter hashtag #cicadageddon and in media reports like these:

[En Publishing: news for the serious mind] CICADAGEDDON: ARE YOU READY FOR THE SWARM OF 2012? (link)

[Riverfront Times (St. Louis MO)] Cicadageddon Is Officially Underway (link)

Today’s Rhymes With Orange, with an extraordinary plant-animal hybrid, accompanied by a portmanteau name:

This is recognizably a daffodil with giraffe properties; in a compound, it’s a giraffe daffodil.

Other plant-animal hybrids go the other way — for instance in the cauliflower sheep depicted in this posting.

And now there’s a book, Catato and Friends, by Renie B. Adams (2012). The catato (a potato cat):

The Amazon book description:

In this delightfully imaginative children’s book, by Renie B. Adams, Professor Peach inspires her students to envision a breed of hybrid creatures that are part plant and part animal. Readers of all ages will smile and giggle at the oddball “Plantanimals” the children create. … Follow the story of doubtful and discouraged Freddy page by page as he witnesses the other children quickly fulfill their assignments. Helen has no trouble imagining how her pet otter would look with a belly painted with watermelon stripes-like a perfect Ottermelon! Clever Peter dreams up his Plantanimal without delay; when his mother said, “Peter, please! No sweets until those peas are gone,” he imagined them as Bumblepeas and watched them fly from home! With the encouragement of his good friends, Freddy overcomes his anxiety and hesitation and creates a charming Plantanimal of his own. You’ll enjoy meeting all of Renie’s creative Plantanimal creations, including Flamangos (flamingo + mango), Raspbear (raspberry + bear), Llama Bean (llama + lima bean), Piggle (pig + pickle), Brussels Trout (Brussels sprouts + trout), and many more, in her fun-to-read poems and beautifully rendered illustrations.

The ottermelon poem:

(“Her otter, Walter” is a nice half-rhyming touch.)

So Walter would seem to be a watermelon otter.

On AZBlogX, amended images from male photographers, amended by having captions added and B. Kliban cat stickers as well — hence the portmanteau name cattion (cat + caption), pronounced /kǽtʃǝn/, for the form. Two sets so far: 12 photos from Michael Taubenheim (some of them dick shots), 15 from Benno Thoma (none actually X-rated, but none with much of a linguistic point).

My “Grocery store semiotics” posting looked briefly at two canned-food preparations: Manwich and Beefaroni. Manwich: “a canned sloppy joe sauce … The can contains seasoned tomato sauce that is added to cooked ground beef in a skillet” to yield a filling for hamburger buns. And Beefaroni: “pasta with beef in tomato sauce”, essentially a ground beef casserole in a can. Both names are portmanteaus, and both are somewhat opaque in their meaning.

Note that the (registered) names are for versions of preparations that can be made from scratch, and were so made long before they were marketed in cans. What the commercial versions supply is ease of preparation, not taste.

1. Manwich. On the sloppy joe:

A sloppy joe is a sandwich originating in the United States of ground beef, onions, tomato sauce or ketchup and other seasonings, served on a hamburger bun. (link)

The sloppy joe is at one end of the masculinity / manliness scale of food (in the sandwich world, it shares that end of the scale with the Dagwood sandwich): it’s meat, it’s messy, and you hold it in your hand to eat it, no utensils needed — man’s food.

[Digression on the other end of the  scale: the cucumber sandwich:

The traditional cucumber sandwich is composed of paper-thin slices of cucumber placed between two thin slices of crustless, lightly buttered white (or wheat in some cases) bread. (link)

This is a sandwich for ladies' teas or for effete men. And it figures in one of the great works of English literature, Oscar Wilde's comic play The Importance of Being Earnest. Early in the play:

Algernon [Moncrieff, to his manservant Lane]. And, speaking of the Science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell [and Gwendolyn Fairfax]?

[Algernon, talking to Jack Worthing, thoughtlessly consumes the sandwiches himself, one by one.  Lady B. and Gwendolyn arrive.]

… Lady Bracknell: And now I’ll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.

… Algernon (picking up empty plate in horror). Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.

Lane (gravely). There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

Algernon. No cucumbers!

Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money.

Yes, this is a total digression from sloppy joe sauce. Though it does have to do with masculinity, and that’s important in the Manwich world.]

Note: the brand name Manwich is a mass noun, but when you use Manwich to make sloppy joes, you have made Manwiches or manwiches; that’s the count noun Manwich / manwich. The product:

  (#1)

Ok, so Manwich is a portmanteau of man and sandwich (with the parts sharing /æn/ in pronunciation, AN in spelling). Crudely, a Manwich (the count noun) is a man sandwich — that is, ‘a sandwich FOR men’ — and Manwich (the mass noun) is a sauce for making Manwiches. Semantically, the brand name is a massification of the sandwich name. (On sandwiches, see this posting.)

Once you have Manwich, other -wich words suggest themselves. A number of these are attested, with various interpretations of -wich. There’s hamwich merely meaning ‘ham sandwich’, or referring to a particular sandwich, a baked ham and cheese sandwich on a dinner roll. And the ChikWich, a breaded chicken breast sandwich on a bun, sold at restaurants of that name. And the shrimpwich, in which other ingredients are sandwiched within a shrimp — in the Sunkist Lemon Shrimpwich with Yogurt-Mustard Dip Recipe (here). And the turkwich, lean turkey with Manwich sauce (and no breadstuff).

2. Beefaroni. Well, you say, no complication here, just beef + macaroni, understood copulatively. Beef and elbow macaroni, with tomato sauce, cooked in a casserole (preferably with cheese on top). And that’s what’s indicated in older photos of the product:

  (#2)

More recent material merely specifies pasta, rather than macaroni specifically:

  (#3)

And the pasta in the photos is related to macaroni (it’s hollow and cut into short pieces), but lacks the curves Americans expect in this pasta. For reference, here’s a pile of elbow macaroni:

  (#4)

On macaroni (with the key to the pasta puzzle):

Macaroni is a variety of dry pasta made with durum wheat. Elbow macaroni noodles normally do not contain eggs, (although they may be an optional ingredient) and are normally cut in short, hollow shapes; however, the term refers not to the shape of the pasta, but to the kind of dough from which the noodle is made. [In common usage, the term does indeed refer to the shape.]

… The name derives from Italian maccheroni, however Italians use maccheroni to refer to any form [of pasta] (link)

The Italian usage survives in the US in the product Rice-A-Roni (which involves vermicelli rather than elbow macaroni). From Wikipedia:

Rice-A-Roni is a product of PepsiCo’s subsidiary, the Quaker Oats Company. It is a boxed food mix that consists of rice, vermicelli pasta, and seasonings. To prepare, the rice and pasta are browned in butter, then water and seasonings are added and simmered until absorbed.

In 1895, Italian-born immigrant Domenico (“Charlie”) DeDomenico moved to California, where he set up a fresh produce store. A successful businessman, he married Maria Ferrigno from Salerno, Italy. Back home, her family owned a pasta factory, so in 1912 she persuaded him to set up a similar business in the Mission District of San Francisco. The enterprise became known as Gragnano Products, Inc. It delivered pasta to Italian stores and restaurants in the area.

Domenico’s sons, Paskey, Vince (1915–2007), Tom, and Anthony, worked with him. In 1934, Paskey changed the name to Golden Grain Macaroni Company. Inspired by the pilaf recipe she received from Mrs. Pailadzo Captanian, Tom’s wife, Lois, created a dish of rice and macaroni, which she served at a family dinner. In 1958, Vince invented Rice-A-Roni by adding a dry chicken soup mix to rice and macaroni. It was introduced in 1958 in the Northwestern United States and went nationwide four years later. Because of its origins, it was called “The San Francisco Treat!”.

Many people find it hard to hear the name Rice-A-Roni without hearing the “San Francisco Treat” jingle, as in this 1995 commercial:

Here’s an array of Rice-A-Roni products — the original chicken flavor and two of the many newer flavors:

  (#5)

So far, that’s two foods with names in aroni, -aroni, or -a-roni, combining a main ingredient name (beef, rice) with macaroni, either referring to elbow macaroni or to any kind of pasta.There are plenty of others, to the point where we might want to think of -aroni as a candidate for a libfix denoting a pasta casserole. There’s at least chickaroni (chicken), hamaroni, turkaroni (turkey), sausage-aroni, and lamb-a-roni. Even a Cheesearoni Beef Casserole (with mozzarella, parmesan, and cottage cheese). Then, more inventively, there’s Rach-aroni paella from Rachel Ray, involving vermicelli, rice, peas, chorizo sausage, and chicken; smackaroni and cheese, with macaroni, cubed longhorn, and cubed swiss; mushroom faux-a-roni (a Rice-a-Roni from scratch recipe, using cut or broken spaghetti); and fake-aroni and cheese, made from cauliflower heads, cheddar cheese, and cream cheese (but no pasta). No doubt there are more.

Today’s Bizarro:

That’s Zen + piñata, with a little joke on Zen. I’m especially fond of portmanteaus with diacritical marks in them; see the Rhymes With Orange with jalapiñot noir in it, here.

Today’s Rhymes With Orange, with a portmanteau:

  (#1)

That’s despair + asparagus. This is a stretch as a portmanteau for me, because the accented vowels in the two contributing words are distinct for me: [e] in despair, [æ] in asparagus. For me and some other American speakers — and for virtually all English speakers outside of North America. But for other Americans, the vowels are quite close (with [ɛ] in asparagus) or identical (with [e] in asparagus). This is merry-Mary-marry territory.

From John Wells’s phonetic blog, on “merry Mary and hairy Harry”, in answer to a query about British-American differences in these words:

It’s not just that “a higher proportion” of Brits distinguish the three sets. As far as I know, all do. To the best of my knowledge no native speakers of English outside north America lack the three-way distinction merry — Mary — marry (RP ˈmeri, ˈmeəri, ˈmæri). We do not rhyme sharing with herring. We do not rhyme clarity with prosperity.

Just as this fact may come as a surprise to Americans, and seem problematic and mysterious, so it can be a surprise for non-Americans to find that some Americans make no distinction. And Americans can therefore get confused over spelling in cases where we never would.

John offers two American misspellings of Merry Christmas that turn on the identity (for some Americans) of the three sets:

  (#2)

  (#3)

Then there’s Harry Potter, whose name is homophonous with hairy potter for a substantial number of North Americans. This opens the way to Hairy Potter jokes, Hairy Potter and Harry Potter being imperfect puns for some Americans, but perfect puns for others. My favorite image (from a great number that are available):

  (#4)