Grammar Moses: What's your true range? And what's so scary about portmanteaus?

Did you know that 11% of people in America are terrified of animals, including cats?

So claims the news release I just read promoting a book on phobias.

I haven't independently verified this as fact, but if you were to visit my home at about 10 every night you'd witness the 15-minute window during which I'm terrified of my own cats, because that's when they get the rip-roarin' Zoomies.

But that's not why I'm writing about this.

The copy writer says the book includes our fears "from agoraphobia to arachnophobia."

That, my friends, is a false range.

When you say your car goes from zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds, I'd tell you to slow down.

But at least zero to 60 is a legitimate range, just like A to Z, alpha to omega and beginning to end.

The secret to true ranges is that they contain similar items that fall along some sort of line.

"I enjoyed this meal from appetizers to dessert," one might say, "except for the beef liver souffle."

Back to the phobia example. What falls on the range between agoraphobia and arachnophobia?

If you're thinking alphabetically, which the alliteration suggests, you have:

• Aichmophobia, a fear of needles. I can't understand why this word isn't more a part of everyone's lexicon these days.

• Androphobia, a fear of men.

• Arachibutyrophobia, a fear of peanut butter.

I counted 21 phobias starting with A. Man, we're afraid of a lot.

But I'm sure the book is about more than just those. To convey the breadth of the book, it would be better to say the book addresses phobias from acrophobia (a fear of heights) to zoophobia (a fear of animals).

You've created a true range because alphabetically speaking you've covered the first to the last.

Sure, make up a word!

Joe Lewnard, who shoots photos and videos and writes stories for us, had a word question for me.

"While chatting with a colleague, I mentioned that New Trier High School really 'stompled' Rolling Meadows in basketball last night, and I half-jokingly mentioned that I'd love to see 'stompled' used in a headline. It's a word that my wife made up years ago - a combination of stomped and trampled. The question for Grammar Moses would be, is it OK to use a word that's not in the dictionary in print?"

If Shakespeare could do it, why can't we?

"Stompled" could be the best new portmanteau - that is, a word formed by a combination of two other words.

If we didn't embrace portmanteaus, we'd never text with emoticons (emotion + icons), listen to podcasts (iPod + broadcast), stay at motels (motor + hotel), eat brunch (breakfast + lunch) or chase it with frogurt (frozen + yogurt), watch romcoms (romantic + comedy) starring Bennifer (Ben + Jennifer), suffer through smog (smoke + fog) or webinars (web + seminar), or fall prey to malware (malicious + software).

Those words didn't start out in dictionaries. People just smooshed them together and they caught fire.

So fly your freak flag and put "stomple" out into the world. Maybe others will catch on.

I would rather wait to use "stomple" in the paper, however, until it's gained general acceptance. Clarity always will be Job One.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's new book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at

grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at

jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.