Friday, July 21, 2006

showing my age

Behold, I shew you a mystery:
 
squick
w00t
shipper
 
Okay, that's three mysteries. But what the heck do they mean? What are the etymologies? Sometimes, you know, I feel really old.
 
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4 comments:

JJ said...

Hmmm... I've heard all of those (or rather, I've read them all)... the one I know best is "shipper"... a shipper is a person who advocates relationSHIPS between characters on a TV show or other form of media -- like the people who think Seven of Nine and Captain Janeway should have been together, they are 'shippers'... they write fanfic (fiction written by fans) about it, point out scenes where a relationship can be inferred, etc... heh, I hope that helps. Not sure about the others

8:21 PM
marauder34 said...

Ah. Back when I first discovered the Internet, when people read listservs and newsgroups instead of web pages and forums, that brand of fanfic often was called K/S. It was so named for Kirk and Spock, whose relationship was one of the most popular ones for that kind of fanfic.

I guess that makes sense. (And in the case of squick, I've got a sense of the meaning from uses like "squicks me out," but I'm still curious to know where the word comes from.)

10:24 PM
Liadan said...

JJ got the etymology of "shipper." K/S I've seen cited as the source of the term "slash," incidentally, as a reference to the / between the two initials.

w00t is something of a mystery; my brother told me it was a contraction of "wonderful loot" from one of the various MUDs. Wikipedia lists this among other possibilities.

I always figured "squick" was somewhat onomatopoeic, as in the squeaky sound one might make if particularly grossed out, though apparently it also derives from a term for... copulating... a trepanned skull.

1:09 AM
marauder34 said...

I think K/S or "slash" fiction probably would be a specific kind of shipper fanfic, wouldn't it? I've always understood slash fiction to be same-sex in nature, though I haven't read enough of it to say for certain. Or does slash fiction now have specifically sadomasochistic elements?

1:45 PM

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