Colloquialism

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Much of the material in fanzines, and practically all the correspondence of fans, is to be regarded as conversation rather than "finished" writing. It rambles on from point to point in a manner like the Stream of Consciousness, with many a parenthesized remark. Contractions are freely employed wherever they'd be used in speaking, and some places where they wouldn't. Slang and dialectic pronunciations are flung about freely, such phrases as "mah pappy's jernt" not being at all unusual. Foreign languages are interlarded whenever the writer feels the urge. To avoid confusion, however, people are usually called by their surnames or some distinctive byname.