What do you call it?

[quinara]

There was an interesting post I read on fanlore this morning about how the latest news (that 'fan fiction' has been added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary) from otw_news should affect Fanlore, which while part of the OTW is supposed to be self-reflective of fandom, rather than looking in from elsewhere (so, the question is, is 'fan fiction' actually the standard way people write the term in fandom, or is it interchangeable with 'fanfiction' or is 'fanfiction' actually the norm - note that that's actually a separate issue to 'fanfic').

I don't agree with khellekson that "fan is not a prefix. Turning the two words into one elides the active work of the fan by making the entire word about the artwork"; I think fanfic is practically an entirely different process to 'fiction', with a different start point, goal and end point, so having an entirely different word makes sense. But that's just a difference of opinion - what I found more interesting was the general squee that 'fan fiction' was now in 'the' dictionary. I hadn't realised it wasn't!

But that would possibly be because, for me as someone in the UK, it's been in 'the' dictionary, ie. the OED, for five years. (I know that says draft, but various other places say it was added properly in December 2004; please correct me if you think I'm in error.)

Besides finding it a little peculiar that apparently US English speakers were without any point of legitimate reference at all before the addition of the term to MW, this got me wondering, in relation to Fanlore and fandom in general, what do people in non-English-speaking fandom and indeed people in English-speaking fandom for whom English isn't their first language call (what apparently is properly referred to as) 'fan fiction'. Do you compound or not? Is it always a loan word or do you have your own terms (this probably sounds ridiculously naive, but despite my FF icon I've never really been involved in fanfic/discussion for a non-English fandom)? Is there another convention elsewhere in the world?

And what do people do more generally? I'd love to hear from my flist and any random passers-by.

Comments

[yvi]

The parts of German fandom I was in used 'Fanfiction'. And I really couldn't care less whether it's "fan fiction" or "fanfiction". Being German, I have a certain leaning towards compound words, but that's it. Maybe I just don't get the subtle nuances of whether it gets to be a compound word or not?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Fiction lists several variants.

[quinara]

Thanks - there wasn't much more to my interest than curiosity; I do find it interesting that German has the hyphenated variant as well as a compound (though do I recall correctly from my A-Levels that that's fairly common with borrowed phrases?).

As for the nuances, I'm not sure I could tell you what they are either. (Apart from the convention that I didn't know about before reading the OTW post that potentially compound terms stay uncompounded when they aren't in the dictionary; which seems to me like a sure-fire way to make them go in the dictionary uncompounded, but never mind.) Of course with or without the space the words read differently, but it would take more analysis than I've conducted (I would say) to work out what the implications are one way or another. I noted my disagreement with khellekson because it seemed that if I was going to link to the post I might as well mention my reaction to it (which was apparently off-the-cuff theorising), but I don't have much more to offer on that particular comment.

[yvi]

As for gender, by the way, "Fanfiction" is usually used as "die Fanfiction", so that's the feminine (and plural, actually, but that's more an interesting aside about the German language) article.

[zing_och]

I'm not in German fandom at all, but when I talk about fandom in German to non-fandom people, I say "Fangeschichten", fan stories. It just sounds nicer to me.

[inalasahl]

Besides finding it a little peculiar that apparently US English speakers were without any point of legitimate reference at all before the addition of the term to MW
Well, it's been in other US-ian dictionaries for years, too. And the Merriam-Webster is not the de facto dictionary in the small specialized circle I have a little familiarity with (Catholic publishers), but I will concede that I know nought about what mainstream publishers use.

I also don't see why Transformative Works and Culture, the peer-reviewed academic journal, and Fanlore, the open-to-all wiki, need to match their spellings just because they are both projects of the OTW. It seems to me they have different purposes.

(Here from metafandom of the future.)

[(Anonymous)]

(Thanks for coming - I have to admit that the phrase 'metafandom of the future' makes me laugh - though I'm not sure my post has been picked up.)

Well, it's been in other US-ian dictionaries for years, too.

That doesn't surprise me - I think it was mostly the wording of the post that made me confused, ie. that MW was 'finally an authoritative source'. I interpreted it as though before that everyone had to make up what the 'correct' term might be for themselves, sort of bashing around in the dark. I suppose there might have been contradictions in other dictionaries?

I also don't see why Transformative Works and Culture, the peer-reviewed academic journal, and Fanlore, the open-to-all wiki, need to match their spellings just because they are both projects of the OTW.

Me neither. I do think the discussion throws up some interesting issues about how we want to define ourselves though, since now we/US fandom (which is most of the sites I frequent) is inevitably going either with or against the dictionary, where before (maybe) it was a bit blurrier. Of course, the thing about Fanlore is that it's called Fanlore, already making up its own compounds...

[quinara]

Sorry - I don't know why I wasn't logged in then. :/

Via metafandom

[solesakuma]

Spanish-speaking fandom always used it as a compound (fanficción)*, but mostly stuck with the shortened forms - fic -. The REAL issue is gender, actually. Most people in in my experience use a masculine form - el fic - but other people use the feminine form.

I've always seen it as one word, really.

* Separated, in Spanish, makes no sense and should be 'ficción fan'. Since 'fanficción' is a translated loan word, it had to be a compound in order to make sense.

Re: Via metafandom

[quinara]

Cool - that's a really interesting point about the gender (obviously not a problem in English!). Does it make any sort of difference for how fic is interpreted as an idea/concept? *knows nothing about genders in Spanish*

Re: Via metafandom

[readingz]

Really? I have only ever seen "fanfic" in Spanish fandom, was this in lj or someplace else? "Fanficción" looks kinda strange, actually, even though it's the natural translation, partly i guess it's because the prefix doesn't make much sense in Spanish and so it makes the whole term sound a bit off (and partly i'm not used to it, 'course). Never seen "La fanfic" either so it's always in the masculine (the default, after all). I have seen "fic" used often as well (only to refer to fanfic, never original fiction like it sometimes is in English).

Via metafandom

[christycorr]

Brazilian fandom represent! We use 'fanfiction' too—well, wait, no. Actually, we use just 'fanfic;' it's considered a feminine noun ('a fanfic'). We rarely use 'fic,' and occasionally 'fanfiction.' I still find it odd to switch from my default 'fic' to 'fanfic' when talking to other Brazilians, but there you have it.

I've never used the term 'fan fiction,' though I suppose that is what I'd be expected to do if I were to become an acafan.

I agree with using 'fanfiction' on Fanlore, anyhow. It's how the English-speaking fandom refers to it, and that's where Fanlore's editors come from; the OTW's policies for TWC don't necessarily inform what we do at the wiki, since the two projects' goals are separate. [This is just my opinion, though, I'm not speaking on any kind of official capacity or whatever.]

Re: Via metafandom

[quinara]

Actually, we use just 'fanfic;' it's considered a feminine noun ('a fanfic'). We rarely use 'fic,' and occasionally 'fanfiction.'

Huh - that's really interesting, especially that 'fic' is so rare (at least from my perspective where it's what I use most of all).

I've never used the term 'fan fiction,' though I suppose that is what I'd be expected to do if I were to become an acafan.

It's a bit chafing, isn't it? It's quite possible I'll slip into acafan territory in the next few years (I think my planned research stuff *is student* could take me close). I'm already thinking there'll be a lot of typos...

And *nods*. Heck, on Fanlore I'd be confused if there weren't articles where 'fic' is what's used.

Re: Via metafandom

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly the same in Portugal.

888mph @ livejournal.com

[cesy]

I'm interested to see the TWC bias to US rather than UK English flagged up so clearly by this. I know that several parts of the OTW have a policy of using US rather than UK English in certain places, but it doesn't sit so well with the international outreach aspect for me personally.

[quinara]

*nods* I've been turning it over in my head. It seems clear to me that of course TWC is a US journal and would abide by US style rules and, to be fair to the news post, it is tagged as concerning mainly TWC. But the sentence "It's taken awhile (the term has been around since 1944, MW informs us), but at long last, fan fiction has been defined by an authoritative source—and for those employed in the U.S. publishing industry, it is the authoritative source; no other dictionary will do" still smarts a little bit as far as I'm concerned. I could take the first half as using 'authoritative' in the sense of 'for our purposes as a US journal', but the near-juxtaposition of 'the' and 'an' makes me read it as if there would be more than one authoritative source in general terms, but MW got there first - ie. the dash seems to me like a 'more than that this is great because', if that makes sense. When I read it like that it feels as though the other dictionaries that had fanfic in before now, including the OED, are not authoritative enough to offer even the most minor point of reference for the TWC stylesheet. (And then if you add in the fact that the OED equally and previously informed us that 'fan fiction' has been around since 1944, I'm left rather rattling my teacup.)

Of course, being as I am nothing more than a consumer of the OTW, they don't owe me anything, so my sadface means pretty much bugger all!

[(Anonymous)]

i was hoping for at least one response from the, er, asiatic side. or any other culture where the roman letters are not usually used. one can dream :D

[troisroyaumes]

Hah, I can make this response because I've been looking for Korean fanfiction lately! Though the answer is unfortunately kind of disappointing: it's still "fanfic" (or in Korean transliteration, "paen-pik", since there is no "f" sound). Occasionally it's written out as "paen-pik so-seol", which translates to "fanfic novel", particularly in forums where the main focus is on publishing online fiction* of any sort (with fanfiction being a subcategory). The full term "fanfiction" ("paen-pik-syeon") will still turn up hits, but much less.

Slash however is designated in Korean terms: "dong-seong", which translates literally to "same-sex"/"homosexual" and seems inclusive of (AFAICT) femmeslash. Het is "i-seong" or "opposite-sex"/"heterosexual".

* One fun Netspeak term for online fiction is "in-so" which is short for "in-teo-net so-seol" or "Internet novel".

[quinara]

Well, the night/day is young! I'd love to hear more too.

[katta]

Well, keeping in mind that it's still a word used by very few Swedes, and even fewer who aren't involved in English-speaking fandom: it's still fanfic or fanfiction. Not fan fiction (Swedes tend to compound words more often anyway), and no Swedish terms.

[quinara]

Good to know, thanks! I'd love to be able to work out what makes fandom take hold in a culture. Almost certainly there's the need for a critical mass of fans with language barriers, but there definitely seems to be a difference between various similarly-prevalent languages.

[java]

Just my gut-feeling, but mostly I've seen fanfic called 'ficci' in Finnish fandom circles. It's a loan word, obviously, it's just adapted to suit our language [very few words in Finnish end with a consonant]. It should actually be written 'fikki', because there is no double-c in Finnish.

Articles and academic studies about fanfiction use the word 'fanitarina', which is 'fan story' in English, and 'fanifiktio', 'fan fiction'. 'Fani' is an older loan word, as is 'fiktio'.

[lian]

sorry, but I just have to but in and say that obviously, Finnish ROCKS fannish loadnwords. fikki! <3 <3 <3

[quinara]

Cool - thanks! A Finnish friend on LJ mentioned 'fanifiktio'; it's great to see what else is there as well. Is 'fanitarina' used by people much online?

[bochan]

Here from metafandom@LJ! *waves* :)

I'm Dutch, and I call it either fanfic or just fic - apparently it's called fanfictie in Dutch, though I must admit I've never actually participated in Dutch fandom. Sometimes I say that I'm reading a story (verhaal), without specifying that it's fan-written instead of published.

When I got into fandom - which is over ten years ago, time sure flies - I immediately went for the English-speaking parts. Dutch TV doesn't believe in dubbing (except for the shows meant for the youngest kids), so most of the things I came in contact with were English to begin with. (My first fandom was BtVS, which I used to watch on the BBC. Ah, exciting times...)

If I had to choose between fan fiction and fanfic(tion), though, I'd go for the second. Dutch is another language where words get smushed together a lot, so for me the compounded version just makes more sense.

(I'm not even sure if there actually IS an active fandom here in the Netherlands - by which I mean where people discuss stuff in Dutch instead of English. I've met a handful of other Dutch fangirls, but they were all members of the English-speaking part of fandom. I think one part of it might be that some people tend to look, I don't know, down on Dutch shows and gravitate towards the English ones... I know for a fact that I've caught that mindset in myself several times. The same with books and in particular manga - they've started to translate those into Dutch the last couple of years, but I don't want those, I want the English translations... and I know I'm not the only one.)

[quinara]

*waves*

Oh, BtVS on the BBC... Good times! Except for the snooker. And the darts. And the bizarre cuts. ;)

And it's good to have another tick in the 'compound' box - it's like the world is agreeing with me! Thanks for commenting.

That's a really interesting comment about Dutch fandom - I'm wondering whether we do anything similar with US vs. British TV shows. Obviously there are things like Dr. Who and stuff, but in terms of things like sit-coms I sometimes wonder whether US ones get some following that we just don't have. Is there any difference (apart from the language) between the Dutch and English translations of things, or is it about being on the same page (heh) as the rest of fandom, or something?