( CNN ) -- Help me out . What 's a word for feeling the pressure of a deadline but also pleasure in meeting it ? I 've got it -- plessure . Nowadays , it seems that a new portmanteau -- a word that is a combination of two words -- pops up every hour or so . You might have just met a frenemy for brunch -- a hybrid word going back decades -- where the two of you shared a cronut before distracting each other with a heated discussion of `` Sharknado . '' Who knows ? The discovery that you both experience spasms of affluenza could make for the beginning of a wonderful bromance . Chillax , I 'm not about to go on a curmudgeonly rant denouncing hybrid words . On the contrary , perhaps they herald a new phase in American verbal creativity . Invented by French chef Dominique Ansel earlier this year , `` cronuts '' are a cross between croissants and doughnuts . In New York City , the pastry debuted in Ansel 's Soho shop to big crowds . They were such a hit that a black market on Craigslist sprang up where one cronut can fetch as much as $ 40 . `` Sharknado '' is a SyFy TV movie about -- you guessed it -- a tornado that tosses man-eating sharks out of the sea onto land . The hashtag # Sharknado took Twitter by storm . Apparently , the word inspired the movie . Is there a trend in the air ? Familiar words are being reshuffled and transformed into dazzling new things . We throw old words into new configurations in a rush to keep up with our faster pace of life , the same way we throw on the clothes nearest to us , no matter how mismatched , if we have to rush out of the house . Maybe it has something to do with technology . The mind reels as it tries to keep up with all the scintillating gadgets and toys . BlackBerry and PCs seem so yesterday . Even IMs feel old compared to some of the newer chat programs . And now we have an explosion of apps where word play is child 's play . Move over , Instagram and Pandora ; make way for Snapchat , WhatsApp and NearMe . You have to wonder if there is n't a little bit of nostalgia in the portmanteau craze . It 's as if we are saying to all the changes : `` Hold on ! Do n't throw the baby out with the bathwater ! '' ( Do n't be a ... throwbaby ? ) Hybrid words come in many flavors . Some have an undertone of irony , and even cynicism , to them : anticipointment , Frankenfood , craptacular . Twenty years ago , genetically modified food was the stuff of science fiction ; hence Frankenfood was born . The concepts behind `` craptacular '' and `` anticipointment '' -- the disappointment we feel after the anticipation aroused by hype has been deflated by reality -- are the product of jaded intelligences that see through the commercial artifice around them . There is something almost decadent , and a little bit Roman , about our rising tide of portmanteaus . In the 17th century , a concept like `` frenemy '' might have been coined by some caustic French writer with an epigrammatic wit . You might even say that a hybrid is an epigram manque . But , then , we are in a cultural phase now that seems more conceptual and visual . Words like `` cronuts '' or `` Sharknado '' conjure up hard-to-forget images . But will people remember them in 100 years ? It depends on whether the words ' meanings will still resonate with people . `` Sharknado '' will probably go the way of the movie it inspired , and cronut seems particularly well suited to NYC in 2013 . But who knows ? Cronuts could stay with us as long we eat them . Some words like metrosexual or screenager say a lot about the way we live . We 've all felt at one time or another as if we 've fallen through the looking glass into some strange new world , where what was familiar to us even five years ago has been turned on its head . It was , after all , Lewis Carroll 's Humpty Dumpty who first coined the word `` portmanteau '' and defined it : `` two meanings packed up into one word . '' Unlike Mr. Dumpty , however , we are kept together by our hybrid words , or at least enabled to rearrange the broken pieces of our familiar experience into something we understand . Maybe the best thing about them is that , with their fusion of disparate words and ideas , they break down any notion of cultural purity . In the end , they capture the most humane promise of American life : the only way through is together . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Lee Siegel .
Lee Siegel : It seems that a new portmanteau -- a hybrid word -- pops up every hour . Siegel : Words like `` cronut '' and `` Sharknado '' delight and dazzle us in their newness . He says familiar words are being reshuffled as our modern life quickens in its pace . Siegel : New hybrid words are emblematic of our culture -- a melting pot where things blend .