One of our long-term projects at Duck Prints Press – something we’ve been working on on-and-off for a while but haven’t made public yet – is a Fandom Lexicon. There are a lot of websites and blog posts that include parts of a list of fandom-specific language, but we’ve not been able to find just a simple glossary, so we decided to put one together. (We’re not saying such websites don’t exist…they surely do…but we also wanted to do our own!)
There are many challenges in making such a list (one of the most obvious being what to include – how general a term is “too” general for inclusion?) but we’ve been doing our best, casting a wide net, and picking the collective brains of people involved in the Press.
And…we’ve basically exhausted our own knowledge/memories/ideas, which is where you, yes YOU, come in!
We want your terminology! What are fandom words you’ve encountered and said “wait, what does that mean?” What’s old fandom slang you used to use that you don’t see anymore and know that some newbie would be confused by? What are words you wish you could have found on a list when you first joined fandom?
We’ve already put together a list of 222 general fandom terms and abbreviations (some definitely “fandom specific,” others more “internet general slang”) and 29 fandom-specific abbreviations (this list is, obviously, much more nascent). You can see the entire list here. (note: there is citrusy terminology on this list, both literally the citrus scale is on there, but also things like A/B/O, BDSM, etc. – it’s a lexicon, after all.)
Currently, we are looking for:
general fandom terms/online terms that would be confusing to people out of context; and
over-arching fandom abbreviations (e.g., MCYT = Minecraft Youtuber, but we don’t want every single abbreviation for every sub-part of the fandom – just the level that if someone saw the abbreviation “in the wild” they’d have at least some frame of reference).
Long term, we’d love to do fandom-specific lexicons as well (NOT wikis, mind you, literally just “this abbreviation often means this” with links to resources that can give more information) but that’s a much larger project that would require recruiting people with enough fandom-specific knowledge for each fandom, and is not our current aim, so please don’t send us stuff like that.
Have you been in fandom a long time? Do you just HATE when people use the word “drabble” wrong? Have you got a list of words you wish fandom still used, or a list of newer terms you regularly look at and go “wait wtf does THAT one mean?”? Send us your words, so we can incorporate them into our list!
You can add a comment! Add your words to the tags! Drop us an ask! However you feel like sending the words our way, go for it.
You can see everything currently on our list HERE. (reminder: lemon text at this link)