Talk:portmanteau

AFAIK, fr: and nl: do not have a separate adjective for portmanteau in the linguistic sense. Mot-valise and mengwoord are both nouns and mean portmanteau word. To write "nl: mengwoord (adj)" and "fr: mot-valise (adj)" is not correct. I've tried to clarify that after nl:. Any comments? D.D. 12:35 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be easier in this respect to number the meanings through without starting again at a new word class? D.D. 12:40 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)


 * I wonder whether the subdivision of this word into three pages is heading us in the right direction. I also question the periods at the end of the three subdivided pages.  The numbering in particular may be quite short-sighted.  This particular word is not likely to be much of a problem, but others with a long list of possible meanings could easily become confused.  If at a given point in time we show 40 definitions of a word, and a 41st presents itself which has some affinity to definition 8; it should perhaps show up as number 8A instead of 41.  I suspect that the split was premature, and that some of these ideas need to be worked through before we get too far down the road.

I really don't like the approach taken in formatting this. I want all major common definitions on one page. And links only if there is more than would easily fit and be useable on one page. Fred Bauder 17:25 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)


 * There is another Portmanteau, Phineas Fogg's manservant in the Jules Verne story Around the World in Eighty Days, but Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia, and this could be a good place to develop an inter-project links. Eclecticology

I quite agree that this is the wrong approach to take. Wiktionary does not have disambiguation pages, partly because articles are shorter than those on Wikipedia and the user of a dictionary does not necessarily known the meaning of the word, unlike the user of an encyclopedia. I propose reverting this page to its earlier form. -- Paul G 12:31, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Referring to Dhum Dhum's orginal comment, "portmanteau" in "portmanteau word" is not an adjective, it is a modifier (ie, a noun used like an adjective to modify another noun). It does not function as an adjective (as it would in the non-sentences "This word is portmanteau" and "This is a portmanteau, long, well-known word".) and hence it makes no sense to translate it as if it were. -- Paul G 12:37, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something but I just noticed that there is still a 2nd entry with an "adjective" heading, which is then contradicted by its own def which admits it's still just a noun after all. Did the survive all the recent editing or come about because of all the recent editing? &mdash; Hippietrail 07:48, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think having the first recordeded of each usage was a great idea. Though maybe not implemented in the best way. I'd like it back and it would be fantastic if we could endeavour to do the same for all the words we can... &mdash; Hippietrail 01:26, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation of plural forms?
How are the plural forms pronounced? I assume that the X in 'portmanteaux' is silent, like in French. How about the S in 'portmanteaus'? Is that silent or audible?

1977 usage
I found this but I don't think it fits any of the existing definitions: Significance levels of the Box-Pierce portmanteau statistic in finite samples:
 * Following Box & Pierce (1970), an overall, or ’portmanteau’, test of fit can be based on these quantities.
 * Recent experience suggests that surprisingly low values of the portmanteau statistic are often found.

Can anyone figure what it is communicating? ScratchMarshall (talk) 07:06, 2 December 2017 (UTC)