Talk:automagical

There's also Automagic Kappa 22:05, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe Portmanteau is a better description of the term? I would have changed it, but it's part of a template. &mdash; en:User:Yom 04:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC) Hmmm..."Portmanteau" actually says that the linguistic term for such folk words are "blends," so I guess I'm wrong. 04:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Please sign each talk page post.
 * might be what you want. The portmanteau entry has seen a surprising amount of controversy, and probably should not be taken as the authoratative word on our formatting instructions.  --Connel MacKenzie 17:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that portmanteau is a better term. 66.80.14.226 00:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Have added to List of Portmanteaux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portmanteaux

--62.163.3.62 10:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Etymology: Isn't it from Terry Pratchett's Disc World cycle?

Isn't it really just a regularly derived word using the prefix/combining form "auto-" ("self-operating, automatic") and the root "magic"? It just looks like a portmanteau because it's also a pun.64.230.78.222 06:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Etymology: I thought it was a Disney thing. I think the doors to Mickey's Philharmagic in Walt Disney World say that the doors will open automagically but I also don't think that's the oldest Disney reference. No definitive answers from me, I just wanted to mention it.

Very old neologism
Some Other Editor stuck a tag on this article, but the Etymology shows 1987 as the earliest use in print … in point of fact, I first used it in an internal Xerox programmer's manual in 1979 … my manager objected to its use, but the other programmers in the group resoundingly supported retaining it … he also objected to the use of "bogus" as an adjective, but like I said, it was the 70s. :-) &mdash; 141.156.161.245 10:32, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * of course; I myself used long ago; Google books has no trouble dating it in computer s/w to 1971, and in photography to 1961. There was also a dishwasher branded "Thor Automagic" in the 1940's. Robert Ullmann 15:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Used in server failure message from GoDaddy Virtual Dedicated servers: tailwatchd failed @ Mon Dec 12 22:35:01 2011. A restart was attempted automagically. Service Check Method: [check command] tailwatchd is not running Seopanda 02:18, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Artificial stupidity
193.161.96.4 09:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC) The sarcastic use of automagical may be related to "Artificial stupidity" aka attempts to make Artifical Intelligence that works in 80-98% of the cases, but where the remaining 2-20% are so horribly wrong that the added 'help' is actually more of a pain.

Derived terms... or the other way around?
The current page lists "automagically" as a derived term. However it looks more like the converse relation is true. Google N-gram of automagically,automagical shows that automagically appeared sooner, and is more popular, than automagical. I'm looking at http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsDerivation.htm for how I'm interpreting "derived term." 115.66.155.85 13:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)