A type of word formation, blend accounts for a significant proportion of new words, particularly those deriving from commercial trade names or which are meant facetiously. Thus, a blend is any word formed by fusing together elements from two other words and whose meaning shares or combines the meanings of the source words. The elements are usually beginning and end of words. For instance, Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge) is an inclusive term for both universities. Camford is also used, but not as often.

Often mistaken for compound words (made of one or more full words or words with prefix or suffix) like keypad or townhouse, blended words do not include prefixes or suffixes. Thus, faction is a blend of fact and fiction while factoid, ?a questionable fact?, is a compound word because of the suffix oid.

Here are some words which you never thought are blends: electrocute (electricity and execute ); prissy (prim and sissy); travelogue ( travel and monologue ), mingy (mean and stingy ); motel (motor and hotel); transistor ( transfer + resistor), smog (smoke + fog);

In the past, portmanteau word was the term used for blends. First used in 1872 in Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll tried to explain some of the words he made up in his nonsensical poem Jabberwocky: ?Well ?slithy? means ?lithe and slimy? ... you see it?s like a portmanteau ? there are two meanings packed up into one word?. It is derived from the French term for a large carrying case hinged in the middle so that it falls open into two halves.

Though many believe that Carroll invented th blends, some such words have been coined earlier. Anecdotage, combined with dotage to suggest garrulous old age, was first recorded in 1823; squirl, a blend of squiggle and whirl to describe a flourish, as in handwriting, is from 1843 and snivelization, coined in 1849 by Herman Melville in Moby Dick from snivel and civilisation, is a term for ?civilisation considered derisively as a cause of anxiety or plaintiveness?.

Experts suggest there may be much older examples ? bash may be a blend of bang and smash and clash of clang and crash. Most candidate words, however, are so ancient that their origins are obscure.

While the media and show business have given us blends like docutainment, infotainment and camcorder, journalists are responsible for the ones like advertorial, Clintonomics, denizen, stagflation (stagnation and inflation).