In an idle moment this morning, Spurtle invited Twitter followers to suggest a portmanteau word for recent, unhappy goings-on in Edinburgh.
We set the ball rolling with 3 offerings of our own: tramasco (tram + fiasco), trambles (tram + shambles) and trout (tram + a curtailed route).
Little did we realise how many idle moments other Tweeps would have ...
@paulwhitelaw responded with tramdemonium, whilst @LoisMcEwan was 'too tramatised to think'. @chronicknitting and local @Sheff01 converged from different directions around 'a good old Archie MacPherson-esque s-tram-ash'; and @BigTamConnery opted for tramjamfry.
@Gussie_Westwood thought Spurtle's tramasco sounded too like a spicy sauce, and our trambles too sweet 'like wombles'. She and @duckdasterdly agreed the quietly understated tramageddon was better, a term subsequently endorsed by @wearecaravan. Former Guardian beatblogger @tomallan declared himself 'tramatically tramcated'. We wish him a full and speedy recovery.
Various people retweeted the – non-portmanteau but nevertheless excellent – German noun schlimmbesserung, meaning 'a so-called improvement that makes things worse'. The term was matched but not explained by @BimblerBaz with geschwindigskeitbeschrenkung.
@zahar's musical allusion was a personal favourite: tramalamadingdong. @glencalderwood and @owenglasgow thought tramgate was the consensus (although 'ugly and lazy').
@greenerleith came up with the Scots-sounding tramacle (containing half a debacle or a misspelt testicle), whilst @shuggeemonsta claimed to have seen it all coming from the start: 'I've always said it'll end in tears and tantrams'.
@AlanDRutland offered no apposite word, but instead came up with the most amusing analogy of the day. The trams project had been, he asserted, 'like an optimist falling off a 30-storey building: no scream, but at each floor a voice is heard saying, "Okay so far"'.