[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Confused!(?)Goat

[Jen Faulkner]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2001 foxmoth at qnet.com wrote:

> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Aberforth's Goat" <Aberforths_Goat at Y...> 
> wrote:
> > Can someone tell me what's with all these exclamation marks? Heidi
> just did it on the main list, with "Fake!Moody" in her title.
>
> 	I think, and I could be wrong, that it's a cross between Barbie 
> doll nomenclature (eg, Totally Hair Barbie), and HTML code, which
> uses the exclamation point as a delimiter. It's used in fanfic 
> criticism to distinguish between different conceptions of a character, 
> ie Leatherpants!Draco is hot, Canon!Draco is not.

I'm impressed, Mike, that's a question about fandom/fanfic I *hadn't*
seen before. *g* And had no ready answer for, except to agree with
Pippin that it's toy naming (Barbie, GI Joe, what have you), and a
computer usage of the exclamation point (the bang).

Now, I'm not going to swear to this, but I think the usage of the bang
here predates html (or at least widespread knowledge of html), and
hearkens back to so-called bang paths for UUCP email (an old form of
email used on some unix systems): somemachine!usermailbox.  
Conceivably, for example, my address could be rendered eden!jfaulkne.  
(I have no real idea what the UUCP address for this system would be,
actually.)  Anyway, I think that's where this particular fan convention
originated.  I could be wrong, though...

--jen :)

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