Fanspeak - Evolution

Evolution

Many terms used in fanspeak have spread to members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Renaissance Fair participants, and internet gaming and chat fans, due to the social and contextual intersection between the communities.

Common examples of widespread usages are:

  • fen as the plural of fan
  • fannish "of or relating to fans and fandom"
  • gafiate (verb), an acronym for "getting away from it all" (i.e., leaving fandom, temporarily or permanently)
  • fafiate (verb), an acronym for "forced away from it all" (i.e., being forced to leave fandom for personal or professional reasons)

A few fannish terms have become standard English, such as fanzine, short for "fan magazine", coined by Russ Chauvenet in 1940, which swiftly replaced the older term fanmag.

Conversely, some fannish terms have been made obsolete by changes in technology (the decline of the mimeograph has doomed corflu for "correction fluid"), cultural changes (a femmefan' is no longer unusual) or the mere passage of time (slan shack for "a house where a bunch of fans live together" has faded, since fewer young fans have read Slan by A. E. van Vogt).

Fanspeak is so interwoven into the fabric of fandom that it is difficult to discuss fandom without resorting to fannish terms such as fanac "fannish activity" or filk music (originally a typo for "folk music").

Other notable terms include:

  • BEM "bug-eyed monster"
  • BNF "Big Name Fan"
  • FIAWOL "fandom is a way of life"
  • LOC "letter of comment"
  • sercon "serious and constructive" (originally a pejorative; more recently, a non-judgmental term for the more serious end of the fannish spectrum)
  • SMOF "Secret Master of Fandom"

(For more terms, see the links to glossaries, below.)

Read more about this topic:  Fanspeak

Famous quotes containing the word evolution:

    “Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
    —Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)

    “The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
    —Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)

    “What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
    —Mario Puzo (b. 1920)