SELECT GLOSSARY OF FAN LANGUAGE

The language employed by fans is a written language full of typographical tricks, contractions, acronyms, and initialese, a shorthand including coinages and borrowings from SF used as shibboleths to identify a text as a fan text and used for common communication among fans. Here are some examples loosely based on a classic fannish reference volume by Jack Speer called, of course, Fancyclopedia (1945; reprinted and expanded many times):

 

ANGLOFAN		a fan living in the U.K.
APA		Amateur Press Association. A group of people who publish fanzines and send them to an official editor who assembles them and mails a copy of each to each member in a regular bundle. Members comment on each other’s fanzines in a kind of group discussion.
BACOVER		the back cover of a magazine.
BHEER		beer, as in “Bheer is the only true Ghod.”
BEM		Bug-Eyed Monster. The first bit of fan slang to get into Funk & Wagnalls dictionary.
BLOG		the (nonexistent) preferred drink of fans. Fan parties and conventions often feature noxious concoctions invented for the occasion under this rubric.
CON		a gathering of fans from various localities. When the numbers are larger than a handful, short for convention.
CORFLU		correction fluid, used to correct errors on mimeograph stencils. Fan magazines are traditionally produced on a mimeograph. (There are still fans and clubs today that treasure their mimeos and hoard mimeo paper—but most fanzines now are done on computer and then xeroxed or offset printed.)
DNQ		Do Not Quote. Indicates a secret, something not to be repeated.
EGOBOO		that which boosts the ego. The reward of fan activity, usually seeing your name in print, especially but not necessarily in a favorable context.
ET		an extraterrestrial being. (Now, of course, no longer limited to fandom since the movie.)
EYETRACKS		when you read a new book you get eye-tracks all over it and it is no longer in mint condition.
FAKE-FAN		one who hangs around with fans and enjoys their company but takes no active part in fandom and may not even be a reader of SF.
FANAC		the traditional activities of fans.
FANNISH		of or pertaining to fans. Used to distinguish a form of activity from the professional or from aspiration to the professional, or even relation to the professional. A fannish fanzine is a publication about SF fandom (not necessarily about SF at all).
FANZINE		a fan publication, an amateur magazine published by fans.
FIAWOL		Fandom Is A Way Of Life.
FIJAGH		Fandom Is Just A Goddamn Hobby.
FILLER		words stuck in to fill up empty space, especially leftover space on a fanzine page, traditionally bits written by the editor, pieces of wit or wisdom or silliness. One of the art forms of fandom.
FMZ		fanzines.
GAFIA		Get Away From It All. Verb—GAFIATE. Said of an active fan who abandons all fannish activities out of distraction or loss of interest, and ends his/her contact with the fannish world. It is possible to return to fandom after an extended period of gafiation; but of course many gafiates are never heard from again.
GREEPS, CROTTLED		a legendary foodstuff, first introduced in a 1953 filler: “But if you don’t like crottled greeps, what did you order them for?”
ILLO		illustration.
MACROCOSM		the mundane, nonfannish world, as opposed to fandom, the Microcosm.
MUNDANE		a person who is not a fan.
NEO		a person new to fandom. For the first year or so in fandom, a person is expected to exhibit NEOFAN (brash and noisy) characteristics.
ONE-SHOT		a fanzine produced (perhaps written as well) at a single session. Strictly speaking, such a fanzine is intended to have only one issue.
SERCON		serious constructive. Refers to an attitudinal disposition to improve fandom and/or SF. The term has come to be the antonym of fannish. For instance, the academic criticism of SF in recent years is “too sercon.”
SIMPLIFIED SPELLING (SIMPLIFYD SPELNG)		the practice of eliminating silent letters, e.g., though/tho, through/thru, or substituting phonetically to condense. This form of shorthand probably entered fandom from the pre-(fan) historic SF novel by Hugo Gernsback, Ralph 124C41+ (“one to foresee for one, plus”-the “plus” was a silent honorific). Forrest J. Ackerman, a leading popularizer of this mode in fan writing, is “4e” or “4sj.”
TWONK’S DISEASE		the ultimate affliction: fallen armpits.