Finn Begin.

I think that if I were a word, I would be quite upset at James Joyce for making me work so hard. Portmanteau - This means the blending of words and their meanings to form a new word with a hybrid meaning. Joyce is all about this. In other literature (I'm thinking of Through the Looking Glass) portmanteaus are somewhat surprising and unique. However, here in Finnegans Wake, wordplay, wordmashing, and wordbashing are the rules not the exception.

Some of my favorite combinations are:

Sinduced

Tighteousness

hippohobbilies

and certainly: caligulate.

Interestingly, I took a look at Thomas' blog and saw his latest post where Caligula is mentioned on page 60 or so. That blog post is here. When I first saw the word caligulate, I first thought of Caligula who was a Roman emperor who is known for his rampant acts of debauchery including killing and incest. What could this word mean then? Is it just the verb form of the man Caligula, or is it a combination with maybe "calculate" or something similar?

Actually, I'm not entirely sure that the real meaning would do me any good. I suppose it is the feeling that I receive that makes all the difference. For example, when I was younger I absolutely hated the word 'basin'. I'm not quite sure what it was about it that incited so much anger, yet anytime I saw the word in a sentence or anything it would affect the way I felt. Nothing good could ever contain the word basin. Isn't that what aesthetics is all about anyway? The feeling and movement of consciousness through art. I will try hard to remain on the tension film while "reading" this book.

And today in our "Random Google Image Search Matchup" we have the word Caligulate.