Spotlight Online - Die ganze Welt auf Englisch
Abonnement
Kundenservice
Fragen & Antworten
Anzeigenkontakt
Sprach- & Reisemarkt
  • PRODUCTS
  • LANGUAGE
  • AUDIO
  • NEWS
  • TRAVEL
  • BLOGS
  • TEACHERS
  • CONTACT US
  • The Spotlight team
  • Dagmar Taylor
  • Mike Pilewski
  • Jan Stuermann
Home › BLOGS › Dagmar Taylor ›

What's new?

22.10.2010
Dagmar Taylor
Dagmar Taylor
Language editor
Language and links
Tags
  • bilingual
  • children
  • language acquisition
  • portmanteau words
  • TV
  • word blends
  • Print
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)
Bookmark this post with:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkARENA
  • Mister Wong
  • Alltagz
  • Delicious
  • Digg

"Chillax!" said my nine-year old son.

"Chillax?" I asked. "Where did you pick that up?"

"On television at Grandma's."

"On which programme?"

"On 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show."

"On 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show?"

"Yes."

That's a funky name for a children's programme, I thought. I've just checked on YouTube. It looks like my parents have relaxed their TV-watching laws a bit!

And, wow! I thought: he's using portmanteau words, "chillax" being a blend of "chill (out)" and "relax". So much for the theory that bilingual children have limited vocabularies.

I get all excited when I come across what I think is a new word or neologism, thinking I can use it for my blog. "That's another blog post sorted," I think. Wrong! As soon as I check Urban Dictionary, I discover that someone else "discovered" it first and submitted it to Urban Dictionary — but years previously. Years!

Take "chillax", for example. Guess when that entered the language, according to Urban Dictionary. 2003. 2003! That's seven years ago. It took seven years to reach me? Maybe I should get out more.

But I did make a cool discovery while I was checking "chillax". The latest entry on Urban Dictionary is "Dracula sneeze".

A Dracula sneeze is when you hold your arm up over your nose and mouth, in a position similar to Dracula holding up his cape, and then sneeze into your elbow.

Just in time for Halloween!

  • ‹ previous
  • 64 of 97
  • next ›
  • Login or register to post comments
Recent posts from Dagmar Taylor
Explore the archive
Subscribe to the RSS feed
"My experience at the hotel was not very Hilton"
Bad hair day
"Is something wrong with my pronunciation?"
Language adventures in France
"Sometimes the best way to say it is in dialect"
A wee bit Scots
"My daughter has standards when it comes to her art"
Child labour

Login

  • Neu anmelden
  • Passwort vergessen?
Spotlight jetzt testen!
Die aktuelle Zeitschrift kommt kostenlos zu Ihnen nach Hause.

Free newsletter

Sign up for our free e-mail newsletter and you'll get a useful idiom and an update about our site every Tuesday.

Unsubscribe

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter
SprachenShop English für Germans
Das Buch ist mit kleinen Geschichten, Zeichnungen, Kritzeleien, Ratespielen, Witzen und Tipps angereichert, so dass jede Seite mit einer neuen Überraschung aufwartet.
Spotlight Verlag
  • Business Spotlight
  • Spot on
  • ADESSO
  • ECOS
  • Écoute
  • Deutsch perfekt
  • dalango
  • SprachenShop
  • sprachtest.de
  • sprachen-download.de
Abonnement | Kundenservice | Lehrerservice | Anzeigen | Presse | Kontakt | Datenschutz | Impressum

© Spotlight Verlag GmbH | E-Mail: spotlight-online@spotlight-verlag.de | Englisch online lernen und üben
Close X