Y’all know I like my portmanteaus. It’s fun…jamming a couple words together for the visual equivalent of an onomatopoeia.

But it’s a numbers game. Volume of effort contributes to ones portmanteau vocabulary. Anyone who spends time around me – whenever that’s allowed – knows that there’s a strong likelihood they will either:

A) witness these efforts in real time

B) hear an occasional successful attempt, followed by me yelling “Boom, Chrisism!”

C) leave the situation not knowing if that will actually land a spot in my portmanteau lexicon or end up a forgotten, situational one-off.

Still, for the standersby I imagine it’s kind of like sex…I enjoy myself. I only hope anyone around me – for the portmanteau efforts – has at least a little fun.

The hazard here it that the success rate is probably closer to 1% than it is to 100%. I leave a wake of broken words.

Case in point, I just tried to mash up “couch” and “slouch”. The result was potentially a brain sprain…which you’d think should also have a portmanteau.

But the process doesn’t work great with alliterative words.

If you attempt to graft the first letters of one word onto the last letters of another, you’re going to end up with the first word, right?

Couching.

Slouching.

I tried Clouching, but that seemed kind of vague and evoked half-hearted kegels, for whatever reason.

I ended up just hyphenating it to couch-slouching, because I was bleeding from the ears.

So, better luck next time.