sporkmanteau

today my dad was talking to me about a movie he watched with my mother. "last night we watched this biopic," he said, except he said it like myopic, as if it were the adjective form of biopia, which is a word that does not exist.

"it's bio-pic, dad," i took it regrettably upon myself to inform him. "i know it looks science-y, but really it's just a plain portmanteau for more expedient facsimile transmission."

"what's a portmanteau?" he asked begrudgigly.

"a smoosh word," i explained, with the eloquent air of a scholar. "like spork."

"huh," he said, and touched his face. "bio-pic." world, rocked.

i actually just learned the word "portmanteau," which is a portmanteau, while conducting related research during a recent attempt to memorize lewis carrol's jabberwocky. that attempt only lasted about ten minutes because i realized that that poem sounds cool and everything, but when you think about how much time the dude spent writing it in perfect rhyme and meter and everything the fact that it exists is actually really depressing, and i realized that anyone who is going to spend even more time sitting there trying to memorize it probably needs to get a life

lewis carrol purported this conceptual "portmanteau" to explain all the bullshit nonsense in "jabberwocky," even though even if you took the time to translate the poem into plain english (get a life) it still probably wouldn't make sense. it is french, liberties taken, for "coathanger." i can only assume this is because sporks did not yet exist in 1871. i feel that a spork is a much more straightforward metaphor. symbol. synecdoche. whatever. sporkmanteau. i'm tired good night.

anyways, he (my dad, not lewis carrol) also pronounces enamored like en-ah-MOOR'd and Hmong like hhhaaahhhhh-mong. i guess i shouldn't talk, in light of the liaison incident last year, but ever since that terrible day i always triple-check my pronunciations. i think a tendency towards misguided emphases may be genetic, honestly. my sister's always been one of the guiltiest. despite being a recovered addict she still says the noun the way you're supposed to say the verb, and don't even get me started on our "political" discussions.

even something as basic and personalized as our last name is a subject for heated debate, like literally everyone in my family says it a different way and everyone is convinced that theirs is correct in the history of the castille del mare dialect of sicilian italian. even my mother, who is pennsylvania dutch.

i guess i know how the sloths must feel. long time the manxome foe we seek. just don't make me say "vase" aloud, because every time i see it in print, i am tempted to find alternative uses for coathangers.