My sister recently shared with me the word malaphor, which apparently is the blending of idioms or cliches; her sharing included the example, "it's not rocket surgery." It's always nice to have another word for something you already know how to do. I mean this summer I had realized that you should
Never count your chickens before they come home to roost!
Having said that, I have for years been collecting words along the same line - serendipitous combinations of words that, merged together, picturesquely convey far more than the sum of their parts. Language Nerds (the main reason I've considered getting Instagram) had one this week:
cupidity: the dumb stuff we do when we are in love
Here are some additional samples that I present for your use.
hanitizer: the stuff we wash COVID off our hands with (credit: small human in Texas)
himpered: when you feel both hampered and hindered in and from doing something
disastrophe: when a catastrophe gets disastrously worse
crimpled: the feeling of not being able to walk because you've been sitting all crumpled up
anticdote: 1. a story about one's own antics; 2. a humorous anecdote told in order to offer warning for others as an antidote to their foolishness (credit: unsuspecting theologian in a lecture)
clowsy: cloudiness that makes one feel drowsy (credit: brother-in-law)
waservoir: a place with a large accumulation of water held in reserve (credit: small human)
wuzzled: the state of a paper that has been crushed and wadded and was not supposed to be in that state Ex: Why is this all wuzzled up?!? (credit: father)
