Anorak (slang)

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Trainspotter

In British slang, anorak is a mostly male, often youthful person who is overzealous or obsessively preoccupied with a very special area of ​​interest or hobby that is seen from the outside as uninteresting, boring and a waste of time. The linguistically informal and derogatory name comes from the anorak clothing, which is perceived as not very fashionable and which is occasionally found in groups that do trainspotting , for example .

origin

The radio announcer Andy Archer is credited with coining and making the term known in 1974. Archer, a former military employee, worked for Radio Caroline , the first private radio in Great Britain and a pirate station that was central to the development of pop music since the 1960s . In May 1974, three boats with fans of the station visited the radio broadcasters anchored not far from the Dutch coast. At Radio Caroline it was decided to no longer broadcast the program from the studio, but from the deck, in order to offer the fans something despite the rather cool day. Archer's remark that he is happy to welcome “ so many anoraks ” is considered the first use of the term in the meaning of loyal, somewhat obsessive fans. In 1984 the term was used in the British Observer for spotters .

Uses

The term is often used similarly to fan , geek or nerd , and the Japanese term otaku is also a synonym.

  • Roy Cropper, a character from the British television series Coronation Street, is a typical anorak.
  • Despite an amour fou to a friend of his mother's twenties, John Major was considered a boring representative of this type, literally by Anthony Seldon as an obsessive political anorak .
  • The rock band Marillion gave an album the title Anoraknophobia because fans of the band are sometimes referred to as anoraks. In 2002 the live album Anorak was released in the UK .
Aviation spotters
  • For spotters , such as railway fans (see puffer kissers ) or bird watchers, their often somewhat old-fashioned, all -terrain outerwear was transferred to their hobbies. The 1998 television film Anorak of Fire is about a train-mocking teenager and alludes to the slang expression in the title.
  • In exceptional cases , the behavior of the anorak could be viewed as pathological . A possible connection between the male gender, life as an anorak, nerd or geek and a mild variant of medical Asperger's Syndrome is made more frequently in the web community. Tony Attwood , a psychologist specializing in Asperger's, went so far as to self-deprecate as an anorak in matters of autism under Confessions of an Autism Anorak . Among other things, he describes his fixation on the topic, which has been going on since school days, and continues the postulated connection in the context of a book with the same title. Scientifically, this is interpreted among other things by the extreme male brain theory of Simon Baron-Cohen .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tony Thorne: Dictionary of Contemporary Slang . Bloomsbury Publishing, February 27, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4081-8180-5 , pp. 33-34.
  2. ↑ Chabers 21st Century Dictionary . Allied Publishers ,, ISBN 978-81-8424-329-1 , p. 50.
  3. ^ Eric Partridge: The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English: AI . Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-25937-8 , p. 33.
  4. ↑ Oxford Dictionaries: anorak, Definition 2 (accessed March 9, 2014)
  5. ↑ Keith Skues: Pop Went the Pirates II . Lambs' Meadow Publications, Horning 2009, ISBN 978-0-907398-05-9 , p. 37.
  6. ↑ a b Andy Archer at The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame
  7. ↑ Alex Games: Balderdash & piffle: one sandwich short of a dog's dinner . BBC, London 2007, ISBN 978-1-84607-235-2 .
  8. ↑ Oxford Dictionaries: anorak, definition 2
  9. ↑ Fraser's Phrases: More British Nerd Slang, 'Spods And Anoraks' Fraser McAlpine, BBC September 22, 2011
  10. ↑ SEMANTIC ENIGMAS What do the British mean when they call somebody an "anorak"? Peter Post, Boston USA Guardian 2011
  11. ↑ Seldon, Anthony. John Major: A Political Life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998, quoted from MAJOR DISASTER A new biography of the man who rose to the top for his absence of any firm position, rather then any positive virtue, review of the biography in the Independent by BEN PIMLOTT November 2, 1997.
  12. ↑ Marillion: Anoracnophobia. Racket Records, 2001.
  13. ^ Anorak of Fire (1998) . Internet Movie Database. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  14. ↑ Die Geek-Autismus-Connection, Michaela Simon March 25, 2002 Telepolis ( Memento of May 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), literally "the nerd, anorak, train-spotter, space-cadet, card-board, cut-out, geek, oddball, weirdo, bufty "
  15. ↑ Autism, Access and Inclusion on the Front Line: Confessions of an Autism Anorak Anthony Attwood, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, March 24, 2006
  16. ^ Trends Cogn Sci. 2002 Jun 1; 6 (6): 248-254., The extreme male brain theory of autism. Baron-Cohen S.