Last week Laura and I were showing her younger sister around Pacific Beach. They did some shopping while I read the paper at Cafe 976. You can imagine my horror however when, walking over, I looked up and saw this billboard. Huevos SPAMcheros! I’m almost twisted enough to try it.

This is via Wordsmith.org where I subscribe to a daily definition/word history email:

As you probably know, the French-speaking Canadians
are very much against the introduction of more and more English words
into the language… so they constantly come up with FABULOUS new
French words to counter the English ones.

An excellent example for this is the mot-valise (don’t know how to
say it in English… when two words form one) pourriel = spam. Pourri
in French means rotten, spoiled and Courriel is the French version for
e-mail!

Mot-valise in English is a portmanteau word (e.g. SPAM = SPiced hAM),
and the word portmanteau itself is a mot-valise from two French words.