By community correspondent, Elaine Swift
I’ve just got back from Kingston where I neatly managed to side-step the chuggers who were out in force. That may sound harsh but I think this has to be one of the worst ways to get people to donate their hard earned cash. I’d love to know how many conversions they get.

However, I’m not going to moan on about this scourge of the high street. It’s the word chugger I want to talk about. Chugger.

Don’t you just love it? It’s a blend of charity and mugger and is one of those new words that’s crept into our language that just perfectly sums up its subject. It works well as a noun or a verb.

Chugged exactly describes how I feel when I’ve been mercilessly pounced on by one of those confident, smiley people who clutching clip boards and wear brightly coloured T.shirts with charity logos.

While I detest the nonsense speak and ugly words that have infested the English language courtesy of politicians, marketeers and HR practitioners, some new words are just so relevant and evocative.

A few months ago, I bought a book called ‘Brave New Words - a language lover’s guide to the 21st century’ by Kerry Maxwell. Like chugger, many of the entries are ‘portmanteau’ words ie words formedby combining two words.

Humpty Dumpty explains
Portmanteau words usually blend the initial sounds or syllables of one word with the last sounds or syllables of another. Other examples include:
Guesstimate - guess and estimate
Brunch - breakfast and lunch
Chortle - snort and chuckle

Portmanteau words were popularised by Lewis Carroll, perhaps most famously of all in his poem ‘Jabberwocky‘ in ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’.

Here’s how Humpty Dumpty explains portmanteau words to Alice: “‘Slithy’ means ‘lithe and slimy’… You see it’s like a portmanteau-there are two meanings packed up into one word." “‘Mimsy’ is ‘flimsy and miserable’ (there’s another portmanteau … for you)”.

Here are some portmanteau words I found in Brave New Words:

Bustitution (noun). It’s what happens to you when you arrive at the station, exhausted after a day’s work, only to find your train has been replaced by a bus.

Babyccino. Fed up of not being able to enjoy a relaxed coffee with a friend in your favourite cafe because your toddler wants to run around and play? Introduce your little one to a babyccino. Apparently a cup of milky froth topped with a spoonful of chocolate powder will keep them happy while you enjoy your coffee and grown up conversation. Not sure what it will do to their figures in ater life though.

Smirting - one for that social piriah - the smoker. Standing outside in the freezing cold while you feed your nicotine habit doesn’t have to be misery. Indulge in a spot of smirting with a fellow smoker. Ask them for a light and there you have it - ice broken and possibly the start of a beautiful friendship.

Sheeple - we all know one of these. It describes people who follow popular trends and base their opinions on what everyone else is saying. Remember that rather desperate fashion item, skirpants? (ooo another portmanteau word). It was a truly awful monstrosity - part skirt and part trouser. Know anyone who succumbed to it? Yep most definitely a sheeple!

Next time you are ambushed in the high street by a jolly chugger and asked to sign up to make regular donations to their charity, tell them you are about to protire.

That means you are going to retire at 35 instead of slogging away at your pressurised, demanding job until your hair turns grey. So, you won’t have any money for regular donations!

www.elaineswift.co.uk