Happy Birthday “Nerdagassing”

Two years ago, in June 2008, John Scalzi coined the word “Nerdgassing”. All you students of fanspeak will remember the definition:

Nerdgassing: The venting nerds emit when some (often minor) detail of a book/movie/TV show/comic book/etc either conflicts with canon and/or handwaves through some some suspect science.

John declared at the time, “I coin this word in the name of humanity,” a bit of impudent humor that resonated with me, so I wrote a post that put the new word through its paces.

Lately I’ve wondered — did the word catch on? Who uses it?

A Google search returned 1,980 hits, though only 84 in the past year and just 2 in the past month. John himself last used it on Christmas Day 2008.

On the other hand I know the word remains in fannish memories yet green — as I was researching this post it suddenly popped up in a lively exchange of comments on Joseph Mallozzi’s blog, here and here.

So I learned — nerdgassing is still likely to break out at any moment.