Commonly encountered words and phrases in filk. Some come from the greater sf fandom, while others are unique to filk.
- Adopted filk
- A song from outside the filk community that has become popular within it. See also found filk.
- Bardic
- A circle where the turns are based on one's position in the room. See Bardic.
- BNF
- Big-Name Filker, a person famous in filk. Formed from Big-Name Fan, used in the general sf fandom.
- Chaos
- A circle where performers take turns in any order. See Chaos.
- Cheeryose
- Formed from "cheery" and "ose", usually meant as a song that sounds cheerful but has a downbeat message or theme.
- Circle
- A turn-taking format of performing songs. See Filk circle.
- Con
- Any large and planned gathering of fans, usually held over two or more days.
- Dead dog
- The activities held after the formal end of a con.
- Fen
- Plural of fan, formed analogously from "man" and "men".
- Filker up
- Expression used in circles to signal that another filker is about to perform. Effectively a call for quiet.
- Filk hog
- Someone who takes up more than their fair share of time in a circle.
- Follower
- A song which in some way connects to an earlier song in the circle, sung by a different filker.
- Found filk
- A song from outside the filk community that has filkish themes. Often used synonymously with adopted filk.
- Frank Hayes Disease
- Forgetting the lyrics of a song while performing it. Named after Frank Hayes, who was infamous for doing this.
- Housefilk
- An informal gathering of filkers for an evening or day, held in someone's home.
- Instafilk
- A very quickly written filk, written and sometimes performed in the same situation where the idea arose.
- Listener
- A filk fan who seldom or never performs or writes songs. Many listeners are still hugely valuable members of our community.
- Mundane
- The world and life outside filk or fandom.
- Open filk
- A space open and available for use for filk circles or other filkish activities. Most commonly used at gencons.
- Ose
- From morose and the phrase "ose, ose, and more-ose". A downbeat and sad song, usually in minor key.
- Pegasus
- The filk awards given out at Ohio Valley Filk Fest.
- Zoomfilk
- A filk gathering held online, usually using the Zoom videoconferencing service.
Credits[]
This glossary draws from the Filk FAQs developed by Kay Shapero and Debbie Ohi.