Beth J. Harpaz, “Staycation or Bleisure? Travel Loves Made-Up Words” (Associated Press, Apr. 9, 2014)
Whatever you’re doing on vacation, chances are there’s a made-up word to describe it. Combine honeymoon and volunteering, you get honeyteering. Combine business and leisure, you get bleisure. Add glamour to a camping trip with wine, steak and scented candles, and you’re glamping.
Lexicographers call these blended words portmanteaus. The travel industry doesn’t have a monopoly on them — think “brunch.”
But they do “come in handy in a business sector where there’s often a need to come up with clever marketing spin,” said Ben Zimmer, executive producer of Vocabulary.com and language columnist for The Wall Street Journal. “It’s niche marketing. You’re trying to appeal to different sectors of the public: ‘Well, we have a special kind of tourism for you and it has a special name.'”
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