Portmanteau Words

As linguistic expert Humpty Dumpty tells us in his explanation of the poem "Jabberwocky," a portmanteau word has "two meanings packed up into one word." For instance, "slithy" is a combination of slimy and lithe.

(1) Robert's family has a set of antique ice cream spoons that have been passed down for some number of generations; they are now in his aunt's possession. (She calls them "runcible spoons" after the term in Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat.") They look vaguely like this:

I was pretty much incredulous when I first encountered these things at his grandmother's house. I mean, who ever heard of someone being born with a silver spork in his mouth? It brings to mind too much of a Kentucky Fried Upper Middle Class concept that I can't quite make sense of. (OK, to be fair, they had the rest of the silverware set also, but I like the idea of having one of these to pull out of my purse the next time I'm settling down to a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and cole slaw at KFC.)

(2) For a while now I have been trying to find shorts that do not appear to have been designed for someone with a waist-to-hip ratio of 1.0 and that do not automatically make one's ass look like a frickin' square when wearing them. (Have you noticed this phenomenon? It's bizarre. Certain back pocket designs make the illusion even more compelling.)

A couple weekends ago, after trying on about 10 different pairs of shorts at the store, and finding only one that was barely acceptable, I decided to try some skirts that they had. Although skirts and shorts are not perfect substitutes, they both have the advantage of being much cooler than long pants in the summer.

Imagine my surprise when trying on the skirt to find a pair of shorts underneath. It was totally a skort, but not the style of skort I remember from the 80's (and hate), which has a panel overlaying the shorts only in the front. A skirt from the front and shorts from behind - now that's an utterly idiotic concept.

In addition to fitting well, being comfy, and avoiding the whole dreaded "square ass" issue, the skort seems completely acceptable for my (casual) workplace in a way that regular shorts just do not. It was $8. I bought one in every color they had in my size (about 8 of them, I think). Here is what the one I wore today looks like.

I feel sort of like a tennis player wearing an above-the-knee skirt with sneaker type shoes, and any sense of athleticism, however unearned, is a desirable thing for walking across campus in this ridiculously hot weather (as of 6:15, it had cooled down to a lovely 100 degrees). And now that I have this sort of crazy set of skorts, I am happy to have an almost complete collection of solid-colored T-shirts for ease of matching; I had not been compulsive in these purchases, but far-sighted.