Balance of blends

We're all for celanthropy...right?

Apr 14th 2011, 22:20 by R.L.G. | NEW YORK

A COLLEAGUE is writing about "celanthropy", and catching his tweets in mid-stream I had no idea what he was talking about. Ben Affleck came up, and I thought maybe he'd recently started some kind of advanced degree, as James Franco has, at some university with a good master's program in celanthropy. Only after reading the word a few times did I realise what it was. Maybe you were quicker than I was to analyse the portmanteau of "celebrity philanthropy".

Or maybe you were slow to get it too. I think "celanthropy" has a couple of problems. One is that it wasn't obvious to me where the stress lay; for some reason I first mentally heard it as SEL-an-thro-py. Sel-AN-thro-py makes more sense when I think about it, as it matches the pattern of philanthropy and misanthropy. But then comes my next problem: misanthropy and philanthropy combine two Greek roots. There's nothing wrong with joining Greek and Latin roots. (Fowler and other traditionalists have criticised it, but unless you're still fighting against "television" and "amoral", this battle is pretty much over.) But since actual Greek roots begin with ce- like "cephalous", I was trying to figure out what the right root might be here.  Finally, a good portmanteau is fairly balanced between its parts, I think: fantabulous is pretty nearly half-fantastic and half-fabulous. Chocoholic, too. Celanthropy is too much -anthropy, not enough celebrity. 

This isn't scientific, but aesthetic: with all respect for my colleague, I vote "celanthropy" as unlikely to succeed. It's just a little too weird.

*the blend/portmanteau of words need to be balanced enough so that one can deduce the original two words

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/04/neologisms