I have always claimed that blends in English tend to combine the first half of one word with the second half of another: 'smog' = smoke + fog; 'motel' = motor + hotel; 'infotainment' = information + entertainment. In contrast, those in Malay tend to combine the first half of successive words: cerpen ('short story') = cerita + pendek; tadika ('kindergarten') = taman + didik + kanak.
However, I recently came across some English blends that combine the first half of two words:
- pixel = picture + element
- biopic = biography + picture
- sysop = system operator
So, maybe English is not so different from Malay after all.
