Syntactic blending: bunker down

[Gerald Cohen]

"Bunker down" is not a blend. It's merely "hunker down" with the
intrusion of "bunker" (based both on phonetic similarity and the idea
of hunkering down in a bunker.

>How can you test hypotheses about syntactic blending?  They are
>common in bureaucratic/business speech and writing, but
>investigation is a delicate matter.


Syntactic blending is not really a feature of bureaucratic/business
speech and writing, although it may occasionally creep in there, as
it does elsewhere in everyday speech.  As for investigation, this is
really a straightforward matter.
If an unusual construction is patently composed of two at least
roughly synonymous parts, it's a blend. (End of investigation).

   For example, I once told my wife: "I tried to reach you, but the
line was off the hook." As soon as I said it, I realized it was a
blend. One of my students was in my office when I said that, and when
I finished the conversation with my wife, he looked at me and said:
"You know, that was a blend." (I had talked about blends earlier in
the semester.

   This particular blend was, of course: "The line was busy" + "The
"phone was off the hook."

   There are loads of examples.

Gerald Cohen


At 11:41 AM -0400 10/10/03, Seán Fitzpatrick wrote:
>My grandmother called these "malaphors":  mala(propism) + (meta)phore
>
>>>From "Jonestown for Democrats:  Liberals follow Gray into the big
>>nowhere", by Marc Cooper in the LA Weekly http://tinyurl.com/qgfm
>>(emphasis added)
>   As the insurgency swelled, the best that liberal activists could
>do was plug their ears, cover their eyes and rather mindlessly
>repeat that this all was some sinister plot linked to Florida,
>Texas, Bush, the Carlyle Group, Enron, and Skull and Bones. By
>BUNKERING DOWN with the discredited and justly scorned Gray Davis,
>they wound up defending an indefensible status quo against a surging
>wave of popular disgust.
>"Hunker down" mixed up with some such phrase as  "go into the bunker with".
>How can you test hypotheses about syntactic blending?  They are
>common in bureaucratic/business speech and writing, but
>investigation is a delicate matter.  People I've questioned haven't
>known where they got the phrase.  Some were scarcely aware that they
>had used it, some became indignant at having their wordsmithing
>remarked upon or irritated at not knowing where the malaphore came
>from, and a few have conceded they had probably confused a phrase or
>two.
>Seán Fitzpatrick