Essential Fanspeak

In its more than eight decades, fandom has developed an extensive vocabulary of specialized jargon regarding our community and our interests as well as fannish denotations for mundane words — we call it Fanspeak. Hundreds of such terms are defined in Fancyclopedia. The sheer volume can be intimidating to newcomers (neofen), so we present here a short list of words and phrases the fannish definition of which every fan ought to know.

Beings

• Actifan
• Bem
• BNF
• Concom
• Consumer
• Faan
• Fan
• Fugghead
• Ghod
• Huckster
• Mundane
• Neofan
• Pro
• Prosucker
• Reader
• Trufan

Activities

• Collecting
• Cons
  • Badge
  • Bid
  • Con Crud
  • Consuite
  • Dead Dog Party
  • Filk
  • Gopher
  • Hall Costume
  • Masquerade
  • Membership
  • Room Party
  • Worldcon
    • Hugo Awards
• Fanzines
  • Pub
  • Zine
• Feud
  • All Fandom Was Plunged Into War
• Fanac
• Gafiate
• Grotch

Concepts

• Circle of Lassitude
• Desert of Indifference
• Disillusion
• Egoboo
• Fandom
• Fanhistory
• Gift Economy
• Literary
• Media
• Sercon
• Timebinding

Other Important Terms

• Bheer
• Blog
• CFG Rules
• DNQ
• The Enchanted Duplicator
• Fanspeak
• H
• Initialism
• Prozine
• SF
• Skiffy

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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.