6 Louise Pound 
gestive power of howl, wail, yell, etc. Perhaps, if it is expedient 
to attempt to draw a definite line at all, blend-words proper may 
be defined as, or restricted to, those having two, or at most three, 
elements in combination; as the mongrel quituate from graduate 
and quit, interturb from interrupt and disturb, or compushity from 
compulsion, push, and necessity, or compushency from compul- 
sion, push, and urgency, or boldrumptious from presumptuous, 
bold, and rumpus. Those that recall, or seem vaguely to have the 
potency of four words or more, might then be classed as indefinite 
blends. In factitious words of the first type, the elements are 
often deliberately and consciously chosen. In words of the 
second type this is by no means to be implied. But much empha- 
sis should not be placed on the number of elements entering into 
blends. Of more importance surely is the distinction that coin- 
ages of the type treated in this paper are created under the influ- 
ence of indefinite rather than definite suggestion. Many words 
which are properly to be classed as indefinite composites might 
depend on no more than two or three words vaguely present in 
the user’s mind. 
To some, the words under discussion are “imitative words,’ 
or “imitative variants” of existent established words. In the 
sense that the onomatopoetic factor enters into many, as already 
noted, the name is often valid; but it is less good if “imitative” 
is meant to imply that they are made in direct imitation of other 
words. The impelling motive in their creation is less conscious 
imitation than vague recollection, with resultant fusion, of certain 
elements in other words; elements which have come—largely 
through association or reminiscence—to have a certain symbolic 
power. 
To attempt a fixed or exhaustive list of indefinite blends would 
no doubt, as already noted, prove neither very successful, nor 
perhaps very profitable. The shott list which follows—a list 
‘ 
8 See slump, originally meaning to fall or sink in a bog or swamp. The 
New English Dictionary calls this word “ probably imitative” in origin; 
but compare the group slip, swamp, plump, thump, bump, etc., from which 
it might well have been built. The Century Dictionary enters words of 
“es 
the character of croodle, flump, etc., as perhaps “imitative words.” 
412 
Ts 
