Blending and Backformation

1. Blending
Blending is the word formation process in
which parts of two or more words combine to
create a new word whose meaning is often a
combination of the original words.

2. Blending
• Combining two separate words to produce a
new form by the fusion.
• By reduction of two words
• Beginning of one word and end of another
• Gasoline and alcohol (gasohol), smoke and
fog (smog)
• Telecast and Marathon (telethon)
• Infotainment , Edutainment, Spanglish,

3. For example:
advertisement + entertainment → advertainment
biographical + picture → biopic
breakfast + lunch → brunch
chuckle + snort → chortle
cybernetic + organism → cyborg
guess + estimate → guesstimate
hazardous + material → hazmat
motor + hotel → motel
prim + sissy → prissy
simultaneous + broadcast → simulcast
smoke + fog → smog
spoon + fork → spork
web + seminar → webinar

4. Questions;
1.Biographical + Picture = ?
2.Smoke + Fog = ?
3.Motel = ? + ?
4. Breakfast + Lunch = ?
5.Gasohol = ? + ?
6.Webinar = ? + ?
7.Spanish + English = ?

5. Backformation
• Typically, a word of one type (usually noun) is
reduced to form a word of another type (usually
type)
• A good example of backformation is the process
whereby the noun television first came into use
and then the verb televise was created from it.

6. • Another special kind of reduction
• A word of one type (may be noun) is reduced to
another word of another type
Examples:
donation = donate
option = opt
editor = edit
emotion = emote
obsessive = obsess
procession = process
moonlighter = moonlight
singer = sing
action = act
revision = revise
sculptor = sculpt

7. Questions?
1. Procession = ?
2. Emotion = ?
3. Action = ?
4. Option = ?
5. Singer = ?