Words can be vaulters. You divide them and leap, as for tele + vision.
If you don’t make it and stumble, you act as in a cloud of well familiar bubbles. You do not look around in amazement, because you know they are there. Alice is perfect to show how, though she never stumbles.
Or, maybe it never shows she’d be about to stumble. She says you first think about the new word, like you could see it written or hear it spoken, and you say it only then. After, when you know the word, it does not take all that thinking about the how. The bubble trick is enough.
Vaulters are words made of other words:
psycho + linguistics
is made of “psychology” and “linguistics”.
We make crosswords, well, much like regular crosswords, we only let words go all directions, and mark vaulters from mergers in colors. Words are easy to find in dictionaries online, if you turn suggestions on.
Mergers do not work the same as vaulters. For a verb as “to condescend”, we do not take the meaning like a sum. The meaning is merged, con :: descend, even if you got two people go down the stairs at the same time. Under :: standing, would be a lot more difficult without merging ideas too.
Finally and beyond doubt, butterflies are not butter that flies, whereas grasshoppers can hop a lot of grass really.
Vaulting or merging is quite usual in grammar altogether, not only in words; try the reads here, Jemma.
6.3. Exercises: the Aspect and the frame
1. The motmot had completely befallen for a piece of fresh stollen. 2. The skylark found nothing to outbid the bit of cosmos with a squid. 5. The golden frog behind the chilidog overslept and wept. 8. The spotted redshank bachelorette bewailed, and reset her buret for the bouncing bet. ■More
6.4. More practice: the frame, variable, and form
2. The hedgehog hid the apples from the bird in a good jar with a lid. 3. The rabbit strew the cashews for the jabiru, and went on making his debut callaloo. 8. The mountain cat usually sat on his mat, to chat with the standpat spat — on habits and repast. ■More
GRAMMAR WEBLOG BY TERESA EVA PELKA 