Talk:The Witch and the Chameleon

Pejorative term

Orangemike was the pejorative term you removed from the page "sci-fi"? If so how and why would this be a pejorative term? -- Ellakbhesse (talk) 18:48, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

To quote from Fancyclopedia:

"Please don't call it "sci-fi."

Forry Ackerman, one of fandom's most avid neologians, coined this cutesy abbreviation for science fiction. It was a pun on hi-fi, the short :form of "High Fidelity," an audio technology introduced in the 1950s. 4E popularized sci-fi in his movie magazine, Famous Monsters of :Filmland, the first issue of which hit newsstands in February 1958, and it was applied widely in ads and by media critics to Attack of the :50-Foot Woman, which premiered in May of that year.

This connection did not appeal to the sercon fans of the era, who shunned the nickname and, much to 4SJ's chagrin, applied it within fandom to :denote only low-quality science fiction, especially the kind of schlocky B movies and TV shows often covered in Famous Monsters -- :"Hollywood-level stuff," as Dick Eney disdainfully referred to it.

As indiscriminate use of the term to describe all sf gained popularity in mundania (along with science fiction itself), fans began to use sf :vs. sci-fi as an "us vs. them" shibboleth. "We never call it 'sci-fi'" was among the first lessons taught to neofen. By the 1980s, many fans :considered it such a slur that they couldn't bring themselves to use the term even in a derogatory sense and began to pronounce it "skiffy." :("Hoi polloi pronounce it psi phi, but we cognoscenti call it skiffy,” as the catchphrase put it.)

The fan organization formed in the early 1980s to run L.A.con II and other conventions in Forry's hometown, the Southern California Institute :for Fan Interests (SCIFI), deliberately picked its name for the initials, which they also pronounced "skiffy."

Fannish distaste for sci-fi continues, but the advent of the SyFy cable-TV channel (originally the Sci-Fi Channel) has made the term so :ubiquitous in the macrocosm and among media buffs, that many newer fans can't grok the objections.

File 770 #54 p6 has an interesting editorial about it by Mike Glyer". --Orangemike (talk) 18:56, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

In Brazil we never saw sci-fi as a pejorative term. And while I was in fandom I never saw anyone naming the term pejorative. I think this is only limited to the older ones in science fiction fandom. I suggest you add information about some fans seeing the term as pejorative before removing it on other pages. A good place for this is the term glossary page itself. So others won't be left without understanding why this removal -- Ellakbhesse (talk) 19:04, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

sci-fi and sci fi both re-direct to science fiction. The first header in that article, "Terminology", has multiple examples of why the term "sci fi" has traditionally been disdained by science fiction fandom and professionals alike. --Orangemike (talk) 19:25, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

There isn't a single opinion regarding the term "sci-fi." Some fans prefer it.

The place for discussion of the term and differing fans' opinions of it, including whether it is a pejorative, can be discussed at greater length in the section: Terminology. If that section becomes long enough, then it can easily be made into a glossary page of its own. --MPH (talk) 19:36, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

MPH, so I recommended Orangemike to add this quote to the terminology page. I myself make constant use of sci-fi because here in Brazil among my milieu it is the most used term and I had never read that some saw it as pejorative. But as the views on a subject have plural prisms, I think it would be good for others to also approach and read about it -- Ellakbhesse (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)