`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make
words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
(from Through the Looking Glass, chapter 6)
Portmanteau words: In the words of H. Dumpty, "I pay them extra and I makes them mean what I like." Lewis Carroll (and Humpty-Dumpty) used the term specifically for blends, like 'slippery' + 'lithe' = 'slithy', or 'education' + 'entertainment' = 'edutainment', but I prefer an inversion of the term that implies that a word (or a phrase) can contain multiple senses, according to need ("as is convenient for them", in the words of Beyond the Fringe).
A Case in Point
The term "knowledge management" has been appropriated as a buzzword (and converted to an acronym: KM) in business circles, characterizing a range of enterprise software applications in the database realm (see a summary by www.brint.com for a clear exposition of multiple uses, past and present). I want to use the term in both personal and institutional senses, referring to the organizing activities that make collections of facts and snippets of information into useful knowledge. I want to stuff different baggage into the container, without being limited to the compass of the buzzword.