Fan Club Monikers Brain Game

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined by, who is this guy?

It’s John Janeski.

What?

Haven’t seen you in a whole week, and you look very different, John.

John Janeski, our quiz guy.

Thank you. I did shave. I had a beard.

I had a beard last week, and I shaved. I don’t know how you picked that up.

In any case, let’s move on to this puzzle here, this quiz I have for you.

You know, very often creativity is born out of love.

For example, many performers, actors, singers, and works of fiction, TV shows, movies, have such a dedicated fan base that the group adopts a unique name to identify them to each other and the outside world.

Now, one of the most famous, of course, is Trekkies, to refer to fans of the Star Trek TV and movie franchise.

And perhaps you know that fans of the singer Justin Bieber are called…

Bieber? Beliebers?

Beliebers, right. Exactly.

So we’re going to take a trip through some hardcore fandoms, and let’s see if you can answer these questions about the fans of different performers or things, okay?

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Good, good.

Now, you might know that fans of Taylor Swift use what name?

It sounds as if they might be fans of funny adverbs, Tom said vocally.

Swifties.

Swifties, yes, exactly.

They are Swifties.

Now, these two are similar and simple.

He writes the songs like Copacabana and Could It Be Magic, but his followers just changed the first letter of his last name and pluralized it to get their fandom.

What are they?

Menelos?

Right, but they changed the first letter to get…

Fanelos.

Fanelos, yes.

I thought you meant plural of man.

Oh, like Menelos. No. No, Fanelos, yeah.

Actors, too, have fandoms.

Actor Chris Pine has a devoted following.

It may be a simply constructed fandom name, but I like how it reminds me of delicious seeds used to make pesto.

Pine nuts.

Pine nuts.

Pine nuts, yes.

Pretty simple.

Similarly, what longtime talk show hosts’ followers call themselves coconuts?

Oh, what’s his face?

Red hair, tall, Irish.

That’s his face.

Conan O’Brien fans.

Conan O’Brien, that’s right.

Of course, fans of Jimmy Buffett are parrot heads,

And fans of the Grateful Dead are dead heads.

If you make a fist, you might figure out the fandom name

For fans of the band Five Finger Death Punch.

Fist heads?

Punch heads?

No, when you make a fist, what do you highlight on your hand?

You make a fist, you highlight knuckleheads.

Knuckleheads.

Knuckleheads, yes, for five-fingered death punch.

I like that one.

Finally, he does things differently and funnily,

So not surprisingly, what comedians’ fandom call themselves,

Or were likely dubbed by the man himself,

Close Personal Friends of Al.

Weirdos?

No, no, no, that’s the actual name of the fandom is

Close Personal Friends of Al.

But I think you know the person.

Who is it?

It’s Weird Al Yankovic.

It is Weird Al Yankovic.

Yeah, it’s one of my favorite fandom names.

Close personal friends of Al.

So perfect.

Well, listen, I’m a fan of you two guys, and I think you did a great job on that puzzle.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, John.

Thank you, John.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Talk to you then.

This show does puzzles, and we’d like to talk to you about the puzzles you have over language.

What’s the question you’ve been asking yourself?

Where did that come from?

Why does it mean that?

What’s the real answer?

Well, we’d like to help you sort it out.

877-929-9673, words@waywordradio.org.