glister, stroddle, spraddle, squinch

After a day of worrying about practical things, I thought I would end it by talking about four words that are useful, though not much used; four portmanteau words that we can carry around and fit into all kinds of interesting sentences. For those that don't know, a portmanteau word is a "blend word." A portmanteau is a leather travelling case that opens into two hinged compartments. Each "compartment" as it were supplies a syllable to the new "blend" word. Among the most common in English are words like "telethon" (telephone + marathon); "smog" (smoke + fog); "SoHo" (South + Houston) or "Medicare" (Medical + care). But I have selected four portmanteau verbs to entertain us tonight. Let's treat them seriatim.

Glister

Glister may be either a noun or a verb, but it seems to be a combination of "glisten" + "luster." The verb is considered obsolete or archaic by the OED and Century, but that doesn't really mean anything if we want to use the word. It means "to sparkle; glitter; be brilliant." Matthew Coverdale's translation of Daniel 12:3 gives us an early example of its figurative use: "The wyse..shal glister as the shyninge of heaven." Shakespeare, following an earlier writer, could say, in MoV: All that glisters is not gold." The OED has attestations as recently as the 19th century: "Sandy plains which burn and glister under an orient sun." I suppose that glisten has taken its place today, and even that isn't used overly frequently, but that doesn't seem a sufficient reason to dispose of glister.

As a noun it means "a bright light, brilliance, luster." From the great chariot vision in Ezekiel 1 we have, in Coverdale's 1535 translation: "The fyre gave a glistre, and out off the fyre there went lighteninge." As recently as 1884 an American author, C.E. Craddock could write: "She caught a glimpse of..the glister of a great lucent, tremulous star." A beautiful sentence is that. Even philosophers could use the term, as did David Hume when he said: "The false glister catches the eye, and leaves no room..for the durable beauties of solid sense and lively passion."

Spraddle

The verb spraddle is seemingly related to the verb spread, and means to sprawl or spread or stretch one's legs wide apart. Spraddle is a comparatively modern term, appearing rarely before the mid-19th century. People could be said to spraddle on the floor or could be encouraged to spraddle one's legs a little faster. This term seems to be a portmanteau word consisting of spread and waddle. Zora Neal Hurston provides a Southern dialectical usage: "Don't set there all spraddle-legged." Spraddle became quite common in literary language in the 20th century. Ernest Hemingway, in the Sun also Rises, could say: "They held him and lifted him. It was uncomfortable and his legs were spraddled." Or, Harper's Magazine, from 1940, using the "n" word, could say: "Every now and then a n.. would come flying out and go sailing through the air--spraddled like a flying squirrel." But the Dec. 1927 issue of American Speech tells us that the phrase "to be all spraddled out" means "to put on airs or be dudishly dressed." So, Damon Runyan could write in 1930: "Down he comes all spraddled out." Thus, the word can still find resonance today, to describe someone who is spread out awkwardly or to someone who is fashionably attired.

Squinch

To squinch (made up of squint + wince) is to screw or distort the face or, with respect to the movements of a person, to squeeze up so as to occupy less space. The noun squinch has a signficance in medieval architecure (an arch) but is beyond the scope of this article. The earliest attestation of the verb is only from 1840: "Lord! how she'll kick and squeel when I spread her out on the close-horse. How it will make her squinch her face, won't it?" One can "squinch and twist" one's nose or "squinch up" one's eyes. Interesting to me is that when you do a Google "images" search under the term, you have dozens of pictures of babies with eyes tightly closed to avoid the bright lights shown on them. They are squinting and wincing all at once. But if spraddle is a term which has never completely gone out of style, squinch is downright popular. Agee & Evans (1941) could say: "Annie Mae is squinched up on the bed like the devil was after her." Or, Flannery O'Connor, in 1955, could write: "She brushed it back..looking down into his squinched face." In addition to its significance as crouching or squeezing into a small space, squinch in modern usage takes on the significance of being thin or shriveled. A squinched person has a lean and shrunken look."

Stroddle

I will never forget the first time I ran across this word (a portmanteau of straddle + waddle). I was reading John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and was desirous of taking in with all precision the allegories and word usages in that great but simple work. When Christian was on the way to the Celestial City, he ran into Apollyon, who wanted to kill him. Bunyan says: "Then Apollyon strodled (stradled) quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said,.. prepare thy self to die." We get the picture of a beast, heavy and built low to the ground, blocking the way of Christian just like the flaming cherubim blocked the re-entry of Adam and Even into the Garden of Eden. Whereas spraddle suggest to me the condition of having the legs spread or to be sprawled, stroddle suggest the action of striding across or setting oneself up across something.

Four words. Four pictures. An encouragement to use our creative instincts to come up with portmanteau words of our own. Enjoy all the words!

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