Portmanwho: Peakportation v. Unseuro

Step 1&2: Make your word and define it!

After staring at the front page of The Times of London for a couple days, here are some portmanteau words I came up with:

cheat + ticket = "chicket"
noun, a rip-off priced or structured ticket (but sounds like a ticket for women)

on + increases = "increases" 
noun, price increases that are paid forward in the process of making the product and ultimate result in a higher price to consumers

pharmaceutical + manufacturers = "pharmafacturers" 
noun, drug makers

pharmaceutical + succession = "pharmacession" 
noun, a meeting of drug companies

peak fares + deportation = "peakportation"
noun, the practice of charging higher transportation prices during higher demand times, such as Uber's and Lyft's

Step 3: Use this word repeatedly.

Of the words I created, I felt "peakportation" had the most promise since the practice of higher fares during peak demand times isn't new, but it is now commonly known, since Uber and Lyft have popularized peak fares.

Example: "Peakportation"

Step 4: Report people's responses to your new word. Importantly -- do people start to use your word? Do people cast scorn on your word? Do people laugh at your word? Let us know what happens.

We were traveling through European countries with convenient pedestrian paths and user-friendly metro systems, we didn't discuss or use uber much, but we did talk about transportation. When transportation came up I tried to work "peakportation" into the conversation and it did not catch on. One person commented, "that sounds like two words" insinuating "peak" or "peak fare" is shorter. It did NOT catch on and got some weird looks.

I realized then that the success of portmanteau words is in their efficiency of expressing an idea in less time or effort than the original way of expressing it. I would say "peakportation" was a failure at producing something new and useful.

Also, I would change the development method. I jotted down words from the paper and played around with combinations (similar to what you see above). So although "peakportation" looked good in writing, it didn't sound so good out loud (try saying it out loud now). It's a four-syllable word! Since I was going to use it in conversation, I should have used a verbal method to create and define my original word. "Chicket" for example sounds great and original, so I should have gone with that if I could think of a more useful definition for chicket.

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Coincidentally....

A portmanteau word that came up organically on my trip to Europe and was both useful, fun, AND catchy was my word "unsureo."

unsure + Euro = unsureo, unseuro or unsur€   

noun, the currency accepted by a country, but you have not kept track of which currency it is

When I got to Zurich, I traded in my USD for currency to travel through Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. That's when I learned that I'd need three different currencies: Czech koruna, Euros in Austria, and Hungarian forint.

It was hard to tell the paper and coin monies apart, they all looked like Euros except for trying to determine whether it had the roman, Czech or Hungarian alphabet printed on it. I also wasn't sure whether a coin with a "5" on it meant 5 cents or 5 dollars in that currency. I felt very unsure about the value of the currency I was holding.

Now that I had Euros, I bought myself lunch at the Zurich airport and paid in Euros. They gave me my change in a different currency. When I asked what this new currency was, they told me it was Swiss Franc. I asked what Swiss Franc was, since I had assumed Switzerland took the Euro without bothering to look up Switzerland's currency! (Whoops) The agent slowly explained it to me: "It is Swiss Franc. You. Are. In. Switz. Er. Land." I said, yes, I know I am in Switzerland, but how can you have Swiss Franc but accept Euro? To that I got a shrug, they were used to it at the airport. Some businesses were happy to accept Euro, but others would not be.

While in Prague or Budapest, some stores were able to accept the Euro but others would accept only the local currency. Hungary and Czech Republic are both part of the EU but not the EEA, so it made sense they would accept Euro sometimes, but it made it stranger that Switzerland - which is not part of the EU nor the EEA - would accept Euro at their airport.

While walking around Prague, the guide said that Czech Republic is part of EU but is unsure if they want to adopt the Euro because they do not want to become Greece. I commented that Czech Republic accepts the "unsureo" (which I had just been using in my head until then) and the group immediately adopted the term.

It helped expressed the idea that we had such confusion and discomfort around the changing accepted currency depending on the business we patroned and using four different currencies in one week. I am not sure how I'd spell it since it came up naturally it sounds great in conversation but looks weird written for the first time in this post. Since it caught on though, I'd say the unsur€ was some creativity!