this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2025
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I just think they're neat!
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Fan was originally short for fanatic, so it does actually imply blind devotion. Etymologically at least.
You know I will.
Curiously "cake" apparently comes from old Norse "kaka", which in many languages is the word for poo-poo, but is more probably related to roundness in this instance.
Thank god language evolves so that now a fan is someone interested in a thing
For the time being you will have to live with implying blind devotion when using the word "fan" to describe something other than an air circulation tool, since it was recently used in that fashion and sometimes still is. So even if you prefer the descriptive approach to linguistics this meaning is still relevant.
Side note, purely descriptive linguistics strike me as madness. I mean if the purpose of language is communication then constantly changing the definitions is kind of antithetical to that. Texts would become illegible in decades rather than centuries.
It evolved through the years. The actual fanatics who don't accept any criticism for their favorite show/movie/actor/singer/whatever tend to be labeled as stans. At least IME.
IME that meaning of "stan" is way younger than I am. I remember it just being a name. And I remember "fan" being used in the way "stan" is now, so I sometimes still use it like that.
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