By Mark Peters
Word blends are the bunnies of language: they breed like motherfathers.
During the recent American Dialect Society meeting in Portland, plenty of blends were singled out. Assholocracy is an apt description of America, especially in an election year. Botoxionist refers to a doctor specializing in the forehead region of vain people. A brony is a bro who loves My Little Pony. That word was voted Least Likely to Succeed, but you can bet similar words will keep sprouting, particularly in the world of fashion.
As fashionistas have lamented, jorts, jeggings, and junderwear—jean shorts, jean leggings, and jean underwear—have assaulted eyeballs and sensibilities for years. Last year, jweats (jean sweats) and even jor-jeggings (an unholy jorts-jeggings hybrid) joined the party. Forget the Mayan doomsday; it’s clear as a crystal skull that we’re living in an ongoing denim-pocalypse.These atrocities aren’t going to stop. I predict the following items will be on sale soon.
(FYI, if any of these are plausible ideas, please call my agent, because I’d gladly sell my soul to the denim industry).
jear muffs
They’re not warm, but fashionistas are warmed by style, not warmth. For the elderly, how about jearing aids?
jonocle
Could be a little itchy for you Mr. Peanut types, but it can’t be worse than peanut allergies. So that evens out.
jape
Maybe Christopher Nolan can work this in to the new Batman movie.
jevlar vest
It doesn’t block bullets, which could be a problem given the recent rise in fashion police brutality.
jinnamon rolls
These will be less fattening than cinnamon rolls because they are inedible.
joon
If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a team of fashion scientists on the moon to change its chemical composition.
jipple
Some say nipples can’t be improved. They’re probably right, but it’s worth a shot.
joodle
The designer dog world, which pumps out teacup malti-poos, toy pitdoodles, and more word blends than a denim-only catalog, could easily mix some denim DNA into one of their hellish kennels of canine copulation.
jystal meth
Jeans and meth are both blue, so this seems like a natural idea that could be the plot of a future Smurfs movie.
jaby
A beautiful, intelligent, precious denim baby. It will look so good with the rest of your jamily.
Mark Peters is a lexicographer, humorist, rabid tweeter, language columnist for Visual Thesaurus, and the blogger behind The Rosa Parks of Blogs and The Pancake Proverbs.
[…] Erin McKean started off the week with a look at how the Super Bowl got its name. For Fashion Week, Erin spoke with The Fashion Spot about fashion jargon, and appeared on The Today Show to talk about the language around men’s grooming and fashion (“There’s meggings, which are leggings for men, kind of ill-advised”). Meanwhile, Mark Peters at the OUP Blog explored denim word blends. […]