TANSTAAFL

(For other uses see the disambiguation page TANSTAAFL

TANSTAAFL, an initialism for There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, and pronounced "TAHN-stah-ful," has been popular as a fannish catchphrase since it appeared in Heinlein's novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Heinlein may have been first to initialize it, but he did not originate the phrase, which likely dates to the Great Depression.

It was a byword of the Ann Arbor sf club the Stilyagi Air Corps, for obvious reasons.

---

Fanspeak

This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc.