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We were thrilled when Brave New Words won the Hugo Award. And we were overwhelmed with excitement when Jeff Prucher, freelance lexicographer and editor for the Oxford English Dictionary’s science fiction project, revisited the blog with his picks of words that may seem to come from science, but really originate in science fiction. Now that Brave New Words is available in paperback, we’ve asked Jeff to write for us yet again. Below are his picks of mainstream words with fannish pedigrees, as coined by science fiction and fantasy fans.

Previously, I discussed words coined in works of science fiction that one might think came from the sciences instead. This time, I’m going to look at words coined by science fiction (and fantasy) fans which have entered the broader lexicon. Specifically, these are terms that are part of what is sometimes called fanspeak, the lingo of science fiction and fantasy fandom. This is probably not an exhaustive list, since definitions of what constitutes fanspeak, and what “entering the broader lexicon” actually means are open to different interpretations. I present these in no particular order:

1. Fanzine. This is one of the most successful terms coined by SF fans, and has gone from referring specifically to amateur periodicals relating (however vaguely) to science fiction and fantasy, to periodicals for fans of just about anything you care to name. The term has been around since at least 1940 in SF fandom, and since at least the 1960s in general use. (The earliest clear citation I’ve found for a non-SF usage is from 1968, which is almost certainly too late.)

2. Fanmag. This is another (of many) term that SF fans used to describe fanzines. It’s less common (I haven’t seen it in any mainstream dictionaries), but has also been used for non-SF zines.

3. Which leads me to zine, the other big success story. Zine was originally just a synonym of fanzine, but sometime in the late Twentieth Century, it was adopted to describe amateur publications of all sorts, not just those limited to one fandom or another, and an entire subculture has grown up around the publication of these zines. Zine can also be used as a suffix, to denote a particular type of zine (such as newszine, a zine that publishes primarily news, or mimeozine, a zine that is produced with a mimeograph machine). SF fans used the suffix profligately, and most coinages have stayed within fanspeak, but a few of the -zine words have seeped into wider zine culture as well, notably perzine (short for personalzine, a zine published by a single person, and often containing personal, journal-like content) and crudzine (a cruddy zine).

4. Completism. The desire to possess all of a set of something. Someone afflicted with completism is a completist. These originally referred primarily to the collection of books and magazines (which is pretty much what there was available to collect in the early days of SF fandom), and is now applied to comics, music, you name it.

5. -con. Another suffix. This shows up in the names of conventions and conferences. In use in SF fandom since at least 1942, this spread to related fandoms such as comics and role-playing games, and is now reasonably common in the names of other types of conventions, particularly computer and tech-related ones.

6. ish. An issue (of a magazine or fanzine). My own family has used this shortening for years, and we were completely oblivious to the existence of SF fandom when I was growing up, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this has an SFnal origin. What hasn’t made it into the broader lexicon is the use of ish as a combining form, in words like nextish, lastish, even thish (the next, last, and current issues of a magazine or fanzine, respectively).

7. fan fiction. Most people outside of the fanfic community probably think (if they think about it at all) that fan fiction is the exclusive domain of SF and fantasy fans. While this was once true, it’s certainly not true any more, and both the name and some of the associated terminology of fan fiction originated in SF fandom. Some of these associated terms are slash (fiction that depicts a sexual relationship between two characters) and Mary Sue (a character that acts out a blatant wish-fulfillment of the author or a story featuring such a character), both of which originated in Star Trek fandom. Curiously, fan fiction was originally used to refer to amateur fiction written about fans themselves, rather than amateur fiction written using the characters or settings of an existing work.

8. sci-fi. This is probably the most contentious word in the fannish vocabulary. It was coined as a simple shortening of science fiction by Forrest J Ackerman, by analogy to hi-fi, and originally had no particular connotations. The term eventually came to be viewed with opprobrium by many fans, however, probably in large part due to its perceived overuse by outsiders, especially the mainstream media. It can sometimes serve as a shibboleth, as well, and in some contexts will identify the user as an outsider. (Despite this, many fans have always happily used the term sci-fi; as I said, it’s contentious.) The term has also undergone reanalysis in the SF community, and can now be used to refer specifically to bad SF (especially movies and television shows); in this sense it is usually pronounced “skiffy.”

For those of you still in a love poem state of mind, three works of genius, and a small burnt offering from me.


Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even for a Day

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?


Pablo Neruda
From his book, Cien sonetos de amor (100 love sonnets),1986
Translated by Stephen Tapscott
University of Texas Press
ISBN: 978-0-292-76028-8


You Bring Out the Mexican in Me

You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila lágrimas on Saturday all
through next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I’d let go the other loves for
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe.

For you.

You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance
with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and the serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda bien-cabrona in me.
The Pandora’s curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.

The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.

You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City ’85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtaccíhuatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustín Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.

You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.

The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in your light. Oh.

I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazoltéotl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The lust goddess without guilt.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primordial exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.

Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Piñon. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible,
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.

Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Atarte. Amarrarte.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves. Let
me show you. Love the only way I know how.


Sandra Cisneros
From her book,
Loose Woman, 1994, Random House
ISBN: 978-0-679-41644-9


WILDFLOWER

Yesterday, you called me wildflower,
and I knew what you meant; a free spirit
blooming outside domestic gardens,
precious for that, bursting with color,
but destined to be always and irrevocable other.

Perhaps you were imagining the field
by your house where wildflowers struggle
up upon their roots, despite harsh winds
and human traffic, or how, in the wild
flowers use their softness to crack through rock,
thirsting deep to hidden springs.

Because the wild flowers inside you,
your eyes sometimes melt,
and I feel awe washing over me
as you savor the iridescent wildflower
perched on a leather outcropping
only a few feet away, in a Byzantine land
where winds brawl, tempests toss,
and driven wild, flowers fly in all directions.

After hours, when time crashes down,
I wonder, do you sit below the cauldron
of night, watching the moonlight spill
onto the savage farm and wildflowers appear
as if by incantation, to beguile you
with their slow recital of dreams?

There, a chaotic winds whisper
over the cold lips of the wilderness
faint clues to life's exuberance
and reach, I know you're searching
for lost words of redemption, and hope
you find some with me, where the wild flowers.

Diane Ackerman
From her book,
I Praise My Destroyer, Vintage, 2000
ISBN-10: 0679771344

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PAST ALL THAT

I have loved you
past the place where
we were good poetry.
Past the Coltrane courtship songs,
past the stories of the ones that didn’t work out;
the ones we could have never loved like this.
I have loved you past the giddy laughter
right before you kiss me.

I have loved you to this place.
The place where we hold on;
trying not to forget.
Where we tell each other
everything will be alright.
When we know there's no money,
and sometimes you go away.
We drink our coffee
as a sacrament.

It was all scented skin
in the beginning.
We have transcended all that.
We are ordinary.
We are bedrock and cool earth.

We are married.



PASO VERDE

I am dreaming
dreaming a world
soft
green
flowing
world is word
word is my body
I am flowing
I am flowing to the place
where I meet myself
where the body is earth
there is no difference
I am curving
curving upward
arcing
I carry a green cup
I drink from it
evergreen
It holds water
a promise
I need this water
to live
all that lives in me
needs this promise
I am curving
I am arcing
I am flying
to my completion
to you, my love
the sky.