[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Serious!Question

[Sushi]

>I have no idea if this is true, but I always assumed the practice came
>from Barbies and other dolls.  You know, Malibu!Barbie, Nurse!Barbie,
>and so on.
>
>Or it could just be my fevered imagination.  Like Heidi, I've been seeing
>the ! since the mid-90s, mostly in X-Files fandom.
>
>Abigail

         Don't take this as dead fact, but as a staunch fourth-generation 
geek I just need to put forward this theory:

         The ! command, indeed known as a bang, comes from Unix programming 
and function.  It is used, I believe, to indicate certain attributes given 
to a command line.  (I *think* that's correct.  Unix/LINUX is more of my 
hubby's area, I grew up with DOS and a custom OS my dad wrote for use in 
power plants.)  Given that fandom and geekdom have for years had rabid 
crossover points, it's inevitable that terminology should slip between the 
two.  (For instance, there is an archaic Unix command called "grok", from 
Heinlein's _Stranger In A Strange Land_.  I think it has to do with 
accessing information.)  With the more or less general availability of 
Internet access that began in the mid to late 1980s, the two meshed even 
further.  Theory goes that, one day, someone wrote something like 
Evil!Spock instead of "evil Spock like in 'Mirror, Mirror'" and it spread 
from there.  I would guess that it began in the late '80s, became a bit 
more prevalent in the mid '90s when fandoms gained a stronger hold with the 
influx of people to the 'Net, and by now is a permanent part of being an 
Internet fan.

         So, yeah.  There's my two bits.  Just callin' it like I see it.

Sushi


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