It’s how Maggie, my 10-year-old daughter, answers certain types of questions these days.
For example, “Maggie, are you feeling better now that you’ve rested?”
“-ish,” she answers. As in, better-ish. Kind of, sort of, a little, not really.
Or perhaps it’s spelled “Ish.” Hard to tell, though I prefer the hyphenated, lower case version. The questions that elicit this response tend to be qualitative in nature. But the range seems to be widening, with “-ish” covering more ground. Not dissimilar to, say, meh.
“How do you like that coffee ice cream?”
“-ish,” she’ll reply from the back seat, licking away without any great enthusiasm, waffling on the waffle cone.
No character in my books has used “-ish” in dialogue. But I suspect that’s going to change.
Bryan A. Garner is the award-winning author or editor of more than 20 books. Garner’s Modern American Usage has established itself as the 
preeminent contemporary guide to the effective use of the English language. The 3rd edition, which was just published, has been thoroughly updated with new material on nearly every page. In the article below, Garner reflects on his column this weekend in the New York Times and asks for our favorite portmanteaus. Mine is chocoholic, what’s yours?
We do love a good portmanteau word, don’t we? A new word blending two old ones.
A friend of mine, a lover of long-distance running and cycling, wrote on his Facebook wall recently complaining about the “drizmal day” he was having. I’d never heard the term, but I didn’t have to think twice about what it meant — and how it felt.
Writing about portmanteaus (/port-MAN-tohz) in this week’s New York Times “On Language” column, I considered what makes or breaks a new coinage. We can certainly do without a strained one, for example, or an indecipherable one, or an unpronounceable one.
Many of the latest portmanteau words are less than charming. I suppose Brangelina might be meaningful to celebraddicts, but I’m not a fan. And some other people seem to agree: bromance, chillaxin’, and sexting have all made the annual wish list of banished words from Lake Superior State University.
No, I don’t really like celebraddicts, either.
But other portmanteau words are clever and incontrovertible evidence that our language continues to evolve in creative ways. Here are some that have survived and even thrived:
- agitprop (agitation + propaganda)
- Amerasian (American + Asian)
- brunch (breakfast + lunch)
- fanzine (fan + magazine)
- mockumentary (mock + documentary)
- rockumentary (rock + documentary)
- stagflation (stagnation + inflation)
What are your favorite portmanteaus? Add them in the comments.
