ONE minute I'm ranting on Facebook about the word "hawkerpreneur". The next minute I'm wranting in the pages of The Business Times. Is there such a word as "wrante"? I don't see why there can't be if we are already clownking around with words like "hawkerpreneur"!

Look, I get portmanteaus. I can't be calling myself a Singlish-loving poet (or a singlet), which I am, if I disapprove of creating clever new words. A portmanteau does this by brazenly kneading together the sounds and meanings of two innocent words.

The original portmanteau is a leather suitcase that opens into two equal compartments. But its word is a portmanteau since porter, in French, means carry and manteau mantle. These days, we also sometimes hear the word "frankenword" - which is another portmanteau for, well, portmanteau.