Articles I never expected to read in the Wall Street Journal...

[gerisullivan]

I have a few minor nits, but the Wall Street Journal mostly got this article about convention naming terminology and practices right.

The article even mentions Fancyclopedia, and links to it on fanac.org.

Other terminology I never expected to see in the Wall Street Journal, let alone pretty much correctly used? "Relaxacons." I especially like the article's close:

"No matter the size of the gathering, con-goers are sure to find a convivial convergence of confederates."

Kudos to Ben Zimmer and his "Word on the Street" column.

Comments

[coth.livejournal.com]

Nice one.

And Worldcon, large and professionally organised!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible that some of the abuse we conrunners get from people whose first experience of SF conventions are professional gate shows is that they assume that all SF pop culture events are run by paid employees. After all, why would anyone do all of that work unless they were Getting Paid. When you explain the fannish conrunning ethos to some people, they think you're either lying or crazy, because no sane person would work that hard without Cash Compensation.

[maruad.livejournal.com]

Having just finished a 9 hour shift as one of the many volunteers (over a 1,000) at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I know it is not unknown in the non-fannish community, merely uncommon.

[jcbemis.livejournal.com]

yeah, calling Worldcon large and professionally organized by conflating it with Comic Con and Gen Con seemed misleading to me.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It had some stuff I didn't know, on the spread of the term outside "our" fandom. I had heard of Gencon, but didn't know the origin/meaning of the name. But "Geneva Convention" is a great fannish joke.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

At their best, the WSJ is surprisingly wide-ranging and light-hearted. Iirc, they once ran a bit on Ozzie Osband and his vanity area code.
I'm surprised to see this, but not surprised at its exceptional quality.