English Language & Usage Asked by Kapten-N on August 23, 2021
A common example would be a famous story on Internet that spawned a meme where someone accidentally combined “Are you okay?” and “I’m fucking sorry” and ended up saying “Are you fucking sorry?”
A recent example was when someone I was discussing something with accidentally combined “handy” and “useful” and ended up saying that it was “handful”. (If something is “a handful” then it’s pretty problematic, not very useful.)
This kind of mixup when you two thoughts with the same meaning accidentally combine into something with the opposite meaning happens so often that there must be a word for it. I’m looking for that word.
Such a word would be used in a sentence like this:
Sorry, I just had an X.
or
X happens to me a lot, but when it does I usually catch it before I actually say it.
I’m thinking it could be something like “antonymic synonym compound”, because it compounds two nearly synonymic thoughts into an antonymic sentence, but this really isn’t my field at all so I’m just talking in my night cap. If there’s a word for it then it’s probably more psychology oriented rather than linguistics.
Should I maybe have asked this in the Psychology StackExchange instead?
Garble (verb) ~ to confuse or mix up (a quotation, story, message, etc.) unintentionally... A garbled message or report contains confused or wrong details, often because it is spoken by someone who is nervous or in a hurry.
Jumble (verb) ~ If you jumble things, they become mixed together so that they are untidy or are not in the correct order. Also ~ to confuse mentally; muddle.
Scramble (verb) ~ to put things such as words or letters in the wrong order so that they do not make sense: He had a habit of scrambling his words when excited.
All are synonyms, and virtually interchangeable in this context.
Correct answer by Bread on August 23, 2021
The name for a new word created by combining and eliding two distinct words is called a neologism. However, normally that refers to a new word that makes sense when you combine two words, not an already established word that doesn't make sense in the context you intend. Urban slang for what happened when you said "handful" would be a brain fart or a senior moment. But neither of those specifically refers to saying the opposite of what you meant.
Unintentionally using the antonym sometimes happens with usage over time in the general population. Eventually, the meaning can gradually become its opposite. For example, I've noticed a lot of younger people use the word notoriety to mean celebrity in a positive way, not according to its actual definition, as in the Ingrid Bergman movie "NOTORIOUS." Same with infamous. Many people currently use this word as though it had a positive connotation, certainly nothing like FDR's meaning when he said the bombing of Pearl Harbor was "the day that will live in infamy." The meaning of those words has not officially changed, even though it may in the future. But the usage does seem to be changing.
However, an individual person doing this - or did you mean you hear other people doing it often too, not just you? One person's tendency to make this kind of mistake could be a psychological phenomenon related to deja vu or synesthesia.
Answered by M Wells on August 23, 2021
It's called blends, or word blend. There are many different types of blends.
For an example, cool and great coming out as "grool" is an intercalative blend.
Answered by JeremeK on August 23, 2021
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