quinara: Approaching Black Mage from FFIX. (FFIX black mage)
Quinara ([personal profile] quinara) wrote2010-01-11 09:36 am
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What do you call it?

There was an interesting post I read on [community profile] fanlore this morning about how the latest news (that 'fan fiction' has been added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary) from [community profile] 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 [personal profile] 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.
viridian_magpie: (Default)

[personal profile] viridian_magpie 2010-01-13 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah. *scratches* Well, we do pronounce it both like POM-mes and the French way, but the first is more common. I think Pommes might be a special case...

Hmm. For instance, a couple of people I know started pronouncing 'okay' the German way; not because they didn't know better but because they were kidding around. It's got to the point where this has stopped being a joke and is now 'normal'. (They DO know better...just... *shrug*. I don't know what to call this phenomenon.)

Also, I'm totally off topic. *sweatdrop*
viridian_magpie: (Default)

[personal profile] viridian_magpie 2010-01-13 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
*shakes head*

The 'ay' is being pronounced like the English 'eye' or 'I'. The combination of 'ay' is extremely rare in German. The only example I can think of is the name Mayer and Bayern (though 'Bayern' used to be spelt with an 'i' instead of a 'y' until our good King Ludwig, who was a big fan of the Ancient World (and thus Ancient Greek culture), 'greekified' the spelling ^_^).