When I realized I was preparing to write this column during “twixmas” (the week between Christmas and the new year), I couldn’t help but wonder just where such an unusual word had come from. How, I pondered, did the ending of “Christmas” come to be added onto “twix” to form an entirely new word, and is there a special name for these unusual terms?

It turns out there IS a name, and here’s how it came about.

In early 2010, linguist Arnold Zwicky (arnoldzwicky.org/2010/01/23/libfixes/) wrote: “It would be nice to have a term for the liberated elements,” as he referred to such words, “that is both more memorable than ‘combining forms’ and also signals the origin of these elements in the reanalysis of existing words (whether the source words are ordinary words, as with –tacular, or portmanteaus, as with –dar).”

As I struggled to follow along, he continued: “I suggest libfix, which can be labeled a prelibfix (prefixal) or a postlibfix (suffixal) when its position within the word is especially relevant.”

OK, let’s unpack that by simply stopping for a moment to think about these so-called libfixes. We all can easily come up with examples of them (almost all of which are postlibfixes, if I’m picking up what he’s throwing down).

Take, for example, a man’s palatial building for his fancy cars: his “garage mahal.” Of course it gets part of its name from the famous mausoleum in Agra, India, the Taj Mahal.

Or take the word “spectacular,” which lends most of its syllables to the libfix “spooktacular,” a word that’s used to describe just about any kind of sales event that takes place in October. Or how about the word “panorama,” which has been turned into the libfixes “Futurama” and “Bananarama.”

The libfix “bookmobile,” which served as a portable library to many of Maine’s small schools, as well as the caped crime-fighter’s “Batmobile” probably have the General Motors’ “Oldsmobile” to thank for a part of their names. So does the Oscar Mayer “Wienermobile,” which spent four months as the “Frankmobile” this past summer before having its original name restored.

If you decide for some reason to spend your next “staycation” binging on “infotainment,” you can thank (or blame) your situation on the “entertainment” you’d have experienced had you gone on an actual “vacation.” (By the way, if you do go on vacation and it happens to be to Queensland, Australia, be careful you don’t step on what has been referred to by the libfix “Toadzilla,” a six-pound cane toad that was recently discovered there and clearly owes its origins to the Japanese mythological creature Godzilla.)

Many libfixes have interesting stories behind their formation. For instance, “omics” (as in “Reaganomics” and “Bidenomics”) owes its existence to the last half of “economics,” which comes from the Greek words, “oikos” or “eco” (meaning home) and “nomos” (meaning account) and referred to household budget or management.

The last parts of the libfixes “carmageddon” and “karmageddon” are taken from “armageddon,” which comes from the Hebrew “Har Megiddon” (“Mount of Megiddo,” an important Israeli battle site). While “telethon” and “dance-a-thon” (which was coined way back in the 1930s) obviously get part of their names from that really long footrace, the legendary Greek “marathon.”

And last but certainly not least is what has to be the granddaddy of all postlibfixes, the infamous “gate.” Over the past 50 years it’s been applied to more than 200 words (not always successfully) to create a metonymy for “scandal.”

There was 1978’s “Billygate,” about President Jimmy Carter’s brother. There was Hillary Clinton’s “Travelgate” (1993), singer Janet Jackson’s “Nipplegate” during the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, and quarterback Tom Brady’s “Deflategate” in 2016, to name just a few.

It turns out that even the correct usage of “gate” is controversial, as is shown in this exchange between British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb after Webb referred to the presidency-ending 1972 Republican break-in at the Democrats’ office in the Watergate complex as “Watergategate.”

Mitchell: Watergategate? Isn’t it just Watergate?

Webb: No. That would mean it was just about water. No, it was a scandal or “gate.” Add the suffix “gate,” that’s what you do with a scandal involving the Watergate Hotel. So it was called the Watergate scandal, or Watergategate.

It’s hard to argue with logic like that.

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at jlwitherell19@gmail.com.

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