Mergers

Happily at work at Los Angeles City College studying U. S. colloquialisms is Pedagogue Lester V. Berrey. Last week in American Speech, a Columbia University Press quarterly, Mr. Berrey learnedly and approvingly discussed contemporarv U. S. journalists' efforts to combine old words into new ones for more exact shades of meaning. The practice, he pointed out, is at least as old and respectable as Shakespeare, who made the word rebuse from

"rebuke" and "abuse." Among merged words now in common use are flabbergast (flabby & aghast) and chortle (chuckle & snort).

Mr. Berrey did most of his research in Walter Winchell's column, Variety, Billboard, "cinemags," Reader's Digest, TIME, LIFE. Some nuggets:

Smubtle: smut & subtle.

Roosevelvet: "the charming Roosevel-vet manner."

Reminuisances: long-winded reminiscences.

Sinema: a naughty movie.

Mirthquake: a comedy.

Smog: smoke & fog.

Representathieves: politicians.

PornoGraphic: a Manhattan tabloid.

Renovation: divorce.

Sextremities: a girl's legs.

Playbore: e.g., Tommy Manville.

Chumpion: e.g., Primo Camera.

One of the best, reports Mr. Berrey, was a magazine's typographical error: "The auto approached the coroner at 70 miles an hour."

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