There were some obvious contrasts between L.A.Con and the 1995 Worldcon, Scotland's
Intersection, not the least of which was the climate! However, in spite of the
great distance between the two locations, both were truly Worldcons, with large
delegations from many countries in Europe and Australasia. Although fandom
originated in the English-speaking world, there are now many prominent fans whose
first language is not English, including the Fan Guests of L.A.Con and the writer
of the following article.  Reflecting back over twenty years
of involvement in fandom, I think that the thing that first of all got me caught in
fandom was the fan-slang, or its fannish language. It's a remarkable language in
many respects, but not a respectable language in some remarks, to quasi-quote Walt
Willis. The first fanzine I ever received, in the spring of 1976, was No. 78 of
Fanac (the Swedish version of Fanac, which lived much longer than its
American counterpart). Just receiving something called 'fanac', or speaking of
'fanzines' will make you intrigued and confused -- and hooked in about a second!Basically, Swedish fandom uses the
same fan-slang as American and British fandom, but there is a smorgasbord of local
variations and inventions. If a fannish word exists in English, it is perfectly
acceptable to use it at once and expect everyone to know it. (If they don't they
will have to learn -- and your ego-boo increases since you managed to puzzle your
fellow fan.) We will certainly understand mimeo, LoC, beanie, hoax, oneshot, mimeo,
gafia, fiawol, fijagh, DNQ, RSN (short for Riktigt Snart Nu, but it means
the same), con (the longer word is kongress), and so on.English words usually work fine in
Swedish, since both languages are Germanic and related. Not to mention that
Swedish since the 19th century has borrowed many English words, due to the
industrial revolution, the British Empire, American music and film, and later the
computer industry. Swedish has borrowed words from Latin, German and French too,
which English has also done. English has even borrowed from Scandinavian languages.
When the Vikings occupied most of England, English got words like 'gate' and
'window'. (But 'gate' or gata in present day Swedish means 'street' not
'entrance', and 'window' means 'an eye towards the wind' in Danish and Norwegian.)
Present day Swedish has also exported a few words into English, like 'ombudsman',
'smorgasbord' and 'moped'.Of course, we'd often put Swedish
endings and spelling conventions into English fan words. Consonants are often
doubled in Swedish and an ending 'a' indicates a verb, so 'pub' (or publish) became
pubba and 'sub' (or subscribe) became subba. 'To LoC' could sometimes
becomes 'LoCca'. To make a Swedish verb out of 'to trade' becomes more difficult
-- tradea just doesn't look right. There is sometimes a variation in
pronounciation. Swedish tend to put the stress on the second syllable, or have
equal stress (which for foreigners make the language sound like the Swedish Chef in
The Muppet Show). Thus some Swedish fans will say 'fanzi-ne' instead of
'fan-zine'. Fannish spelling is also important. An extra 'h' here and there shows
the rhight shpirit. An 'f' in front of words is fanother fhing, with
fariations.Swedish fanzines in my early days
sometimes had lists of hundreds of fan-slang terms, which were immediately consumed
and put into use without the slightest hesitation. If there wasn't a word for a
central concept, one would immediately be invented, and if something funny happened
a new word or phrase or concept emerged. This is the basis of local variations.Two early sources of inspiration
were Elst Weinstein's The Fillostrated Fan Dictionary, which I ordered from
the States (I found every every second word in it to be an abbreviation of some sf
society, but still...) and Ingvar Svensson's Skandifandom. Svensson did two
thick 'yearbooks' of Scandinavian fandom in the mid 60s, which did things like
listing the short stories in all fanzines, exploring all possible variations of
abbreviating 'science fiction' ('sf', 's-f', 'SF', 'Sf', 'Sci-fict', 'sci-fi',
etc.), and listing fan-slang.In the 50s Sweden had its local
version of Ackermanese, 'Appeltofftese' (or appeltofftska), named after
Alvar Appeltofft, an enthusiastic but somewhat eccentric Swedish fan from that
decade. Appeltofftese was a mixture of general slang, English, other languages,
fan-slang and totally invented words. A simulation of Appeltofftese would sound
like: "Amigo, I dig dein fanzine. Jeez, it's cool & ql! Fillot på side
zwei is tooooo much! But beware of the marsianerna som will invadera. Jag have
mein Luger ready." 'Ql' reached widespread use, an abbreviation of kul,
which means 'funny'. The incomprehensible 'Henrylinderese' and the witty
'Adlerberthese' are later variations of importance. The latter, by book reviewer
Roland Adlerberth, always notes that the heroes klarar hyskan å det
förtjänstfullaste ("fixes up the mess real good"), making a book
en hörnsten i varje sann sf-fans bokhylla ("a cornerstone in the
bookshelf of every true sf-fan" -- of course, you'll need a bookshelf shaped like
a polygon).
In late 1978, I and a (then) friend
started a newszine, Vheckans Ävfentyr ("The Wheeks Advfenture," which I
have mentioned in earlier articles in Mimosa) that did a lot of
fan-slang-slinging, constantly distorting words and inventing new ones. For
instance, the then half-known semi-pro Steve Sem-Sandberg was renamed 'Steve
Slime-Sandberg' since we didn't like him. (Now he is the highly paid cultural
editor of Sweden's second morning paper, and I'd better shut up.) Things we didn't
like were 'highly puerile' (högeligen puerilt) or 'unreasonably
humoristic' (orimligt lustifierande). We were in constant feuding with the
local Tolkien Society Forodrim, or Fårodrim ('Sheepodrim') as we said,
covering the adventures of the typical member, Burkalf ('Tinalf' or
'Jaralf'). Letters to Tolkienists should, we argued, be ended with
Ringaktningsfullt ('Disrespectfully', note the 'ring'). The fantasy fans
have a wide variety of words, by the way. I won't go into that, but I could
mention that the imcompetent translation of LOTR into Swedish by Äke
Ohlmarks is the cause of ohlmarxism.There were sometimes mini-feuds
('feud' is fejd in Swedish) around the usage of fannish words. Some wanted
'fanzine' to be spelled fansin (since we say 'magasin' instead of
'magazine'). Others pointed out that fanzines weren't a fannish sin and the
'fansin' side eventually lost. Some comics fans have adopted 'fansin' but that's
OK since comics is a fannish sin.Roscoe, the third fannish Ghod, was
an important import into Swedish fandom. The concept of fannish Ghods was too
powerful to bypass. Available information on Roscoe was a bit meagre, but it was
easy to fill in details. Every issue of the newszine quoted the Roscoenian motto
"The Reality of Fanac, the Hope of Ego-boo, and the Promise of Bheer". (The
newszine was also called The Jack Wiedenbeck Magazine; Harry Warner, Jr.,
once wrote that "Jack Wiedenbeck was the first fake-fan.") From 1981 on I have
arranged Fourth of July parties to the honor of Roscoe, when Stockholm fans gather
to drink enormous amounts of bheer after which we will see Roscoe's shimmering
rocket in the sky, to remind us that the beaver Ghod on the last day of the 200th
Fandom will descend from the sky to revive all acti-fans and bring them to the
Perfect Fandom.There were some attempts to use
competing Ghods (Ghu had a brief popularity), even Swedish ones like Birger,
a hedgehog who flies over the sky in his red UFO. (A rip-off of Roscoe?
Beaver = hedgehog, rocket = UFO?) 'Birger' was invented by Mika Tenhovaara and
Tony Eriksson, who also made a long complete list of new Swedish fanslang, that had
some humorous points but never caught on. For instance, they suggested NKVD
instead of 'SMOF' ('NKVD' is the old name for the Soviet KGB). They also called
the mimeo vevmys (approximate translation: 'crank-cosy'). Eriksson also
found The Best Place in the World (Världens bästa plats) in a
sand-pit outside the city of Eskilstuna.
Another concept of fan-religious
implications is 'the fannish raw-force' or den fanniska rå-kraften,
which is the high energy extra-force a fan may utilize when he for instance goes
into the twentieth straight hour of typing stencils. Just rå- ('raw-')
became a popular, genral prefix from this.Stockholm fandom (or StF, or The
Squares of StF, from Irish Fandom or The Wheels of IF) wasn't the only ones to
invent new words and concepts. In Sala fandom they found out that any question
could be answered with Det finns mycket ("There is much"), a phrase that
spread rapidly, and that an sf hero always could get out of trouble by
gnägga sin käcka rokokorumpa i morgongröten ("rubbing your
dashing rococo ass in the morning porridge").When it comes to food,
jordnötter (peanuts) is important, being the food of the early
Stockholm club meetings in Lars-Olov Strandberg's apartment and later the object of
The Great Peanut Race. In Gothenburg, spritskransar (a sort of cookies)
became popular. (I think it started with someone saying: "Anything may become
fan-slang. Take spritskransar, for instance." And he proved right!) In
Linköping the fans eat some sort of small candy, shaped like flying saucers.
A mythical dessert is 'Fanana Split' (ice cream with bananas shaped like
rockets).Witter, from the name of the
fangroup Witterhetssällskapet Din Ven Fandom, became a central concept
in Stockholm fandom. It is a variation of the word 'vitter', which means
'knowledgable', but came to be used for anything witty, fannish or funny. Local
inventions in Stockholm fandom included ärkeneo ('arch-neo') and
KG or Kul Grej, 'cool [or funny] thing'). The arch-neo Ture
Storm is a Swedish variation of Joe Fann. The concept of dumska, an
ungrammatical variation of stupid (approx. 'stupidness'), became popular from the
absurd comic strip "Blixt-Grodon" by the fan Lars "Lon" Olsson. The term
'recenzine' is sometimes used for a review-fanzine. 'Blast corflu'
(sprängkorrekturlack) was used by fannish secret agents to get into
high security board rooms. Maybe you could get the help of a FATT-fan?
("Fandom's Answer to a Twelve-ton Truck," a big and strong fan.)An important invention, for good or
more likely worse, was the fanzine blockade (fanzineblockad; Swedish often
use compound words, like German), invented by Marvyn De Vil in 1978. If you are in
a feud with someone you may put him in fanzine blockade, i.e., you won't send him
your fanzine and you may possibly persuade your friends to do the same. The theory
is that your resolute action will force your foe to gafiate, ha ha! (But in
practice it seldom works.)For many years the concept of a
fanvecka ('fan-week') was important -- if you have the house for yourself,
announce a fanweek and invite all fans. A 'fannish weekend' is just for a couple
of days. To attend these events, you we're often tempted with ett koppel
brudar ('a leash-ful of broads'), which is quite essential to engage in
göka spånken ('to fuck the booze') resulting in en massa
skakande gående på; ('a lot of shaking going on'). If you can only
meet in a group phone call, over a switchboard, you have a
telefangathering.Swedish fandom adopted the name
Sverifandom (from 'Sverige' = 'Sweden' in Swedish) and Scandinavian fandom was
Skandifandom (local spelling is 'k', not 'c'). If you like something, you
may say "it'Sveri ghood." Bheer, of course, became öhl
('öl' is related to the English 'ale', but don't order a big
'öl' in Germany unless you are a robot and fancy a can of oil) and we
did sometimes try to build that bheer can tower to the moon. The Danish and
Norwegians are similar to the Swedes in fan-slang use, but maybe not so extreme.An import from Danish and Norwegian
is bytteabbo, which means trading subscriptions to fanzines. The Sala fans
in the late 70s, by the way, had the habit of explaining all typoes as "Norwegian
fan-slang." The Danish fans call their country 'Fanmark', but if you're in evil
spirits you may say Mundanemark. A Norwegian breakthrough in printing
technology was the Rory Rull, basically mimeographing without a mimeo. If
you're really desperate you can use with pottography, invented by Denis
Lindbohm in the 50s, using special paper developed in ammonia that smells like piss.
Anyway, it is better than proffset. You might want to do a tape-fanzine on a
cassette instead, a kazzine.Two words (possibly) inspired by
German fandom, that has had some use here, are Vurguzz and voldes-fan.
The first is a fannish drink, some sort of blog, said to be popular among German
fans. 'Voldes-fan' is a fan who is "violent and destructive," like throwing
water-bombs from the top floor; the term had some use after the incident when a
couple of fans attracted the police after firing blanks outside the SFSF clubhouse.
Speaking of blog, one might mention my own home-brew wine, Chateau Roscoe; I've
called my homebrewed Fannenbräu, and I've sometimes tried to brew cider,
TryckCider (= 'printed pages'). If you drink enough of this weird stuff you
become a brungangol, an ancient Nordic word meaning 'he who often goes to
the well'. By the way, Yngve, as in the similar "Yngvi is a louse," is also
old Nordic.Some have tried to replace the term
'science fiction' itself in Swedish. Suggestions include vetsaga,
teknovision and faktasi. The latter was in fact Swedish
Galaxy's winner in their great contest to find a replacement-word, around
1960. The only impact it had was to rename the publishing firm of Sam J Lundwall
(Lord Theo of Chandra), Fantasi & Fakta, to Faktasi & Fanta. The
latter is a popular drink, 'ståss ('of course').Finally, a number of quotations
have intrigued and amused Swedish fans over the years. The motto of Borås
fandom used to be "How, but where?" (Hur, men vart?), unless they simply
shouted Boråååås! or commented Så sött
då! ("How sweet, eh!"). Gothenburg fandom correctly observed that
"Fandom is something much bigger than ourselves" (Fandom är något
mycket större än oss själva). Anything may be "scratchy and so"
(raspigt och dant) or "such shit!" (sån't skit!). If you
really want to see Swedish fans roll on the floor you may claim, "My name is Nisse
Ear" (Jag heter Nisse Öra). But is hard to beat the interview with the
fan Wolf von Witting (also known as Wull Vör-Wirring, 'total confusion')
in a national newspaper in 1979. When asked why he liked science fiction and space,
he answered: "Just imagine, white dots in a black darkness!" (Tänk, vita
prickar i ett svart mörker!). That was years before Carl Sagan (when he
wasn't busy stealing my Ansibles) found out about the blue dots. And if you
have to finish a letter or an article fast you might write, "I have to finish now,
because Lars von Laserbeam just entered the room."Jag måste sluta nu,
för Lars von Laserstråle kom just in genom dörren. All illustrations by Charlie Williams - - - - - - - - - -
 |
|