Michigan gave us Motang

This terrific word blend was uttered by our Malaphorer-in-Chief at a rally in Michigan:

During his rally in Freeland, Michigan, Trump told the packed and largely maskless crowd that “Michigan gave us Motang,” then added “Gave us Motown, gave us the Mustang.”

You can hear the clip here:  https://www.mediaite.com/news/watch-trump-tells-crowd-michigan-gave-us-motang-and-twitter-has-a-field-day/

It is of course a mashup of Motown and Mustang, two things that Trump said Michigan gave us.  Word blends are a subset of malaphors.  They are unconscious blends of words to make an unintentional new word. The word sounds or looks correct at first blush, but then on closer examination is incorrect. Examples on my website are “Buckminster Palace” (Buckingham and Westminster, and/or possibly Buckminster Fuller) and “split-minute decision” (split second and last minute).  Word nerds might say these are portmanteaus, but a portmanteau is a combination of two (or more) words or morphemes, and their definitions, into one new word.

A big thank you to Bruce Ryan for hearing this one and sending it in immediately.  It is actually getting quite a buzz on Twitter.