How fans talk about their passions ⏲️ 6 Minute English

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English from BBC

Learning English.

I'm Beth. And I'm Neil.

If you really love something,

maybe a sport or a hobby,

a music band or a TV show, you might call yourself a fan.

Nowadays, thanks to the internet, fans

from around the world can meet online to share their passion

and this has led to a new word, fandom. Fandom is more than simply being a fan.

It's a whole culture created by a community of people

to share their love of the same thing.

What's more, fandom has started to develop its own language.

In this programme, we'll be taking a trip into the world of fandoms and, as usual,

we will be learning some new and useful vocabulary, too.

But before that I have a question for you, Neil.

The original word 'fan' was first used about Americans

in the early 20th century.

But what were these Americans fans of?

Was it: a) Hollywood movie stars, b) baseball or c) Disney cartoons.

I'll guess they were fans of Disney cartoons.

OK, Neil. We'll find out later in the programme.

Michael Bond is the author of a new book, Fans.

Here he discusses the meaning of fandom with BBC

Radio 4 programme,

Word of Mouth. Kings rule

their kingdoms, fans certainly rule their fandoms.

It taps into that ancient human impulse to belong to a group of like-minded people,

and of course, being a fan by yourself can be a challenging thing

because fannish pursuits can look quirky and odd...

even obsessive,

and you get often mocked and I mean, if you're a Jane Austen fan

and you want to dress up in a bonnet and gown of the Regency era,

it's difficult to do that by yourself in public,

but once you join a fandom, there's no problem.

  Fans are groups of like-minded people.

They share similar opinions, ideas or interests.

They do all kinds of weird and wonderful things together,

such as dressing up as Harry Potter characters - behaviour

which might be called quirky, an adjective meaning odd or unusual,

but in an interesting way.

Unfortunately, this quirky behaviour also means fans sometimes get mocked.

To mock somebody means to insult them by laughing at them in an unkind way.

But this hasn't discouraged fans who have started using new words

and phrases to show

they belong to a particular fandom.

Here's Michael Bond again,

explaining the meaning of two new words about the behaviour

of football fans to BBC

Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth.

Academics who study fandoms,

they love to use acronyms and abbreviations

and they've got several phrases which they use to describe the behaviour

of football fans...BIRGing so that means 'Basking in Reflected Glory'.

When your team wins

everyone wants a bit of the action,

you take to the streets, dance around... and so the antithesis

of that is CORFing which means 'Cutting Off Reflected Failure'

and that is what people sometimes do when their team loses

and they don't want to be associated with

that loss, that sense of failure.  

BIRGing is made of an acronym of the words,

Basking in Reflected Glory.

It means feeling good about yourself when the football team you support wins.

Fans say, "WE won!",

even though it was the players on the pitch,

not the fans, who scored the goal.

When their team wins,

fans cheer and want a piece of the action, an idiom meaning

that they take part in celebrations and other exciting group activities,

and feel the success of the team as a personal success.

The opposite of BIRGing is CORFing, another acronym,

this time of the words,

Cutting Off Reflected Failure. CORFING involves distancing yourself

from the team you support when they lose.

Instead of saying, "WE won", you say, "They played rubbish!"

Of course, true fans never CORF.

In fact, some football fans take a kind of strange pessimistic pleasure

when their team loses

week after week.

I can't imagine that's true of the Americans you mentioned, Beth.

So, what was the correct answer to your question?

I asked who the original word 'fan' was used to describe. You said it was fans

of Disney cartoons, which was...

the wrong answer,

I'm afraid. Actually, it was baseball fans, or 'fanatics'

as they were called at the time.

OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learnt,

starting with like-minded - an adjective describing people who share

similar opinions, ideas or interests.

Quirky means odd or unusual, but in an attractive or interesting way.

If you mock someone, you insult and laugh at them in an unkind way.

BIRGing is short for Basking in Reflected Glory.

It means feeling good about yourself when the team

you support wins. The opposite of this

is CORFing, an acronym of Cutting Off Reflected Failure,

which means distancing yourself from your favourite team when they lose.

And finally, if you want a piece or a slice of the action,

you want to take part in a celebration or other exciting group activity

to include yourself in a collective success.

Once again, our six minutes are up.

Join us again next time

for more trending topics and useful vocabulary here at 6 Minute

English. Bye for now. Bye!