Words that I like!

Sobriquet. It's like a nickname, only it's familiar enough to be used in lieu of the actual name without any kind of explanation.

For example, the lead singer of The Offspring, Dexter Holland:



His real name is Brian. He acquired the sobriquet "Dexter" in high school, having graduated valedictorian. As in the case of Mr. Holland, the sobriquets often come to be better known than the actual names. Another good example of this phenomenon is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal:



His real name is Piyush. Obviously, Bobby is a more politically-palatable name than Piyush, but I still wouldn't want to adopt a hypocoristic as my sobriquet.

Oh, and that brings me to my next word:

Hypocoristic. It's just a fancy word for a shortened version of a given name. For example, "Alex" is a hypocoristic of the given name Alexander. I learned many Spanish hypocoristics on my mission in Uruguay. They're fascinating. I want to give my kids Spanish names just so they can use those nicknames.

Portmanteau. This word originally referred to a type of luggage common in the 19th century. Unlike other suitcases of its era, the portmanteau opened in two halves. In his book Through the Looking Glass author Lewis Carrol metaphorically used the word portmanteau to refer to a blend of two words...and the usage caught on. We have plenty of portmanteaus in our everyday vocabulary: smog ("smoke" and "fog"), camcorder ("camera" and "recorder") and spork ("spoon" and "fork".)

What are your favorite words?