AKICIF: Obscure Jargon

[akirlu]

Dear Internets: Please help me with my homework a sekrit project. Give me one obscure bit of SF or fannish jargon, something from books, movies, fanfic, fandom -- whatever -- along with its definition, please. Thanks in advance.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Probably not obscure enough, but there's always "stf" as the abbreviation of scientifiction.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

That's definitely the right direction, but maybe too well known still.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

When people in fanzines used to leave snide remarks or humor in a sentence but strike it out as if meaning to remove it, that text was "semi-cancelled."

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever heard/seen that one before. Thanks!

[jophan.livejournal.com]

It was used in fanzines over here all the time, y/o/u/ i/g/n/o/r/a/n/t/ n/e/o/.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

Quasiquote: a quotation from a conversation that has been improved a bit along the way.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

RAEBNC? Or is that too well-known?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Fairly well known, but I'm beginning to think that a "speed round" in addition to a bluffing round is not a bad thing. Parsing fannish acronyms fast on a timed round would probably make a good segment.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Fans are slans?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yes, and possibly a "meanings and origins of fannish in-jokes" round would work as well.

[carbonel]

Finish the line: I had one once...

...but the wheels fell off

[davidlevine]

Q: Who sawed Courtney's boat? A: http://fancyclopedia.org/courtney-s-boat

Although a better faanish trivia question might be: "where might you have seen this question?" and/or "why is it fannishly significant?"

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Twonky: an anachronism introduced by time travel

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Nice. I've not seen that one before.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

A smeerp is a bit of mundane life that an SF author puts on an alien planet because they're lazy about worldbuilding. (Smeerps are small, herbivorous, move very fast with a hopping gait, and breed quickly. They're rabbits. But calling them rabbits wouldn't be SFnal enough, so we call them smeerps instead.) (from Damon Knight)

Zeerust is the particular kind of datedness which afflicts things that were originally designed to look futuristic. (Adams and Lloyd, "The Meaning of Liff".)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Both of these are excellent. Thanks!