Rosebud
(Did you mean a Mari Beth Wheeler fanzine?)
Our Fancyclopedians were being discreet here, but rosebud is a fannish euphemism for a part of female anatomy. Bob Tucker (who was Mari Beth Wheeler’s boyfriend in the ’40s) always refused to tell “The Rosebud! Story” in mixed company, and the fanboys have kept the secret, so we don’t know what exactly happened between him and Walt Liebscher, although we assume they weren’t alone.
However, Francis T. Laney reported in Fan Slants 3 (June 1944):
BOOB TUCKER’S CONTRIBUTION to fandom’s vocabulary is spreading amazingly. I presume most fans know, theoretically at least, what is meant by the term “rose-bud”, but it may not be so generally realized that the word is gathering momentum in the outside world as well. I have been told on very good authority that this phrase is virtually standard usage now in at least two army camps, and know that it is gaining ground in several local defense plants. Certainly the term fills a crying need; it is just the happy medium between awkward medical phraseology and the obscene argot of the gutter — it would not surprise me in the least to find it used universally a decade from now. How delightfully ironic it would be if, after all our high-minded and endless discussions on the future of the world, this term “rose-bud” should be fandom’s only contribution to world culture!
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| (Welles:Tucker) Originally the name of a boy's sled, and Citizen Kane's last word. It got into fandom when a character in Doc Lowndes' interminable fanfiction serial, Trigger Talk at Green Guna, murmured that just before kicking the bucket. The cry was repeated to Liebscher by Tucker under circumstances which gave it a special (and very kteic) fannish meaning. |
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| (Welles:Tucker) - Originally the name of a boy's sled, and Citizen Kane's last word. It came into fandom when a character in Doc Lowndes' "Trigger Talk at Green Guna" murmured that just before kicking the bucket. The cry was repeated to Liebscher by Tucker, under circumstances which gave it special fannish meaning. |
See also: Epithets, Expletives, Insults and Obscenities.
| Fanspeak | 1944— |
| This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc. |
