#562 Ports

I’m getting so I like made-up words. I used to resist the forward march of language, but no more, for shizzle.
Because where language erodes in one area, it flourishes in another. Where some old words wear down like a patch of dead grass turning into the neighborhood’s loose dog trail, other new words spring up and flaunt their fecundity like a vegetile pride of dandelions.
Like the new words we all know and love, “Spork” and “skort.” Compound words in a non-traditional sense. Two words put together to convey items that actually are—two things put together.
The derivation of “skort” is pretty easy to understand. It’s a composite of skirt and short. If you are to meld those two words, you only have two real choices, “skort” and “shirt.”
Having a garment that is a combination of a skirt and shorts and calling it a shirt—not so good.
The other word, “spork,” is more problematic. Your two combo choices of spoon and fork are “spork” and “foon.”
Unfortunately, for some deep-set instinctive language reason probably dating back to caveman days, “foon” does not sound like an implement with which to eat.
It sounds like the back half of an idiot, as in buffoon. Don’t be such a ‘foon.
So, not wanting to be a foon, spork it is.
I propose a new term. There is a type of pant out today—a long short, or possibly a short long.
Women are wearing them, and in their case, the old term capris is alive and functional.
But guys are wearing them too, and with them, the term capris sounds a little foofy.
And the cumbersome “guy capris” is just that, some cumber.
So I propose we use the wordmeld again. The only problem is which.
They are a pant and they are a short, so “port”? Port sounds like someone left a nautical barn door open.
But shant sounds cool.
And shant is available because it’s an old word that died off a long time ago, unless you’re sporting an English accent.
I say, I shan’t be wearing my capris today.
America ya gotta love it