Chapter Text
Author’s note
There is no such thing as a perfect dictionary, for language is a shifting, personal thing, and inherently imperfect and irregular. It is ruled by common sentiment, and shifts and warps through time as those sentiments change. Language is, as far as we know, inherently human, and—as all of us know—humans are inherently imperfect.
Thus is the folly of the dictionary: to put into rigidity that which is in constant flux. And yet countless dictionaries have been produced for disparate tongues and for centuries, for they are often helpful nevertheless. Similarly, I hope this lexicon will be of use to you.
I compiled this dictionary out of my love for this fandom, and this fandom’s love of language. We unspokenly decided collectively that we would use this complicated jargon, full of Greek and Latin and technobabble, because it was entertaining and aesthetic.
So, far from being a constraining rulebook, I hope this helps authors write and readers read. Use the terms you see herein, yes, and use yet more where you see fit. Steal and twist and rework, for this is what language is. I hope this lexicon will show you the patterns that rule our common jargon, but I encourage you to invent, imagine, and go beyond.
Explanation
As an author myself, I have primarily compiled this lexicon of 322 terms in the interest of aiding fellow Transformers authors in discovering the terminology in use, the choices available, and which patterns to follow when coining a new term. Nevertheless, I hope that the alternative definitions and forms also serve to help readers in this fandom, especially if they are new.
Whilst numerous other Transformers lexicons have attempted to compile this fandom’s vast realm of jargon into a single comprehensible dictionary, most are ultimately based on a single Wattpad lexicon. Although it is certainly admirable, it is also flawed: it is mostly limited to anatomy, does not indicate the terms’ frequencies, and is prescriptive in that it gives no alternative forms or definitions.
Whilst the above work was valuable in the original composition of this lexicon, most of the terms found herein have come from my own personal experience reading and writing. This lexicon will also differ in a number of fundamental ways: it will take frequency into account, list alternative forms of terms and alternative definitions, and most importantly of all, I will be updating it regularly to add new terms or definitions where necessary. Already, dozens of terms have been added since the original publishing of edition 1 of this lexicon, which originally had only 195 lexemes.
Nevertheless, please note that there will be some terms I have purposefully chosen to exclude (e.g., razoroyster), simply due to my personal perception that they may not be of sufficient use to offset any confusion they could introduce. There will be some terms in the dictionary, likewise, that I have chosen to include despite their rarity (e.g., tibulen), as I personally considered them more useful than confusing to enterprising authors.
In defining terms, I have often used ‘Cybertronian’ or ‘in a Cybertronian context’ to specify that the jargon term being introduced is analogous (but crucially not identical) to a Terran (human) concept. The choice of ‘Cybertronian’ here does not denote the planet itself, but rather the ancestral context; this is to say that a transformer on Earth, a Velocitronian, and a turbofox would all fall under this umbrella.
This lexicon will aim mostly to define terms that are significant in fanon. If a term is well-trod in canon (e.g., the Matrix of Leadership), then my assumption is that the reader of this lexicon will either already be familiar with it, or be able to satisfy their curiosity using TFwiki.
In other words, and to reiterate, whilst TFWiki fundamentally aims to catalogue all canonical knowledge, this lexicon aims to define fanonical consensus.
Methodology
I have attempted this undertaking by using as scientific a method as I could devise. Sorting by kudos, the first 50 works over 50,000 words without significant human characters were opened, in ‘entire work’ mode (these works are noted in the reference list). This was done to procure a large and varied base to conduct the analyses with, whilst ensuring the highest usage of Transformers- and Cybertron-specific terminology, and that (with the works being popular) this terminology would then have been read by the largest reader bases possible (a priori thereby having the largest effect on consensus).
Each term was then analysed for how many of the 50 works it appeared in, whilst noting the most frequent meanings and alternative forms. In total, this lexicon has analysed terms using a base of over 15,000,000 words of highly-kudosed Transformers works. Of note: the only two terms which appeared in all 50 works were ‘spark’ and ‘frag’, which perfectly displays the dichotomy of man (mech).
If you have any suggestions for terms that could be here but aren’t, please link me a work which uses the term, in the comments (especially interested if there isn’t an existing term for the concept)!
Guide for usage
The layout of a term listing will be as follows:
term
frequency. [alternative forms/spellings]
- definition
- [alternative or coordinate meanings]
Many of the terms herein will have multiple definitions. Unless directly contradictory, they are often used for their different definitions varyingly throughout most works, and the relative frequencies of these alternative meanings (as well as forms) will be noted thus:
- gen.: = generally; most common and (relative) majority.
- oft.: = often; common but not the (relative) majority.
- occ.: = occasionally; notable but infrequent.
- equ.: = equally; without significant difference in frequency.
To further guide authors, consensus is shown through the frequency of each term as a whole, delineated into 5 categories based on the percentage of the 50 works which the term appeared in:
- com. = common; 50-100%
- unc. = uncommon; 25-49%
- lim. = limited; 10-24%
- rar. = rare; 1-9%
- per. = personal; 0%; these are terms too rare to appear in the base of works, but that I nonetheless consider useful and have personally seen or used.
Please note that I have in this lexicon used the British spelling convention; do alter the terms appropriately into alternative spelling conventions if necessary.
In terms of categorisation, the terms were loosely categorised into broader and finer themes, and sorted within those themes such that one term might logically lead to the next, with similar themes found closer together. Categorising thus, however, was a struggle at times, hence the coining of the broader categories ‘naturalities’ and ‘quotidianities’, which herein are used to refer to ‘all that which is natural’ and ‘all that which occurs or happens in day-to-day life’, respectively.
Please note, some terms will necessarily contradict others (e.g., ‘coolant pump’ and sense 1 (tears) of ‘coolant’). Authors are thus encouraged to curate the list of terms they prefer, rather than accept this entire lexicon as a cohesive rulebook.
Indeed, I encourage authors to read this lexicon not out of obligation, but curiosity. Keep in mind that the usage of jargon is a spectrum, and that far to one end is canon itself: whilst some continuities have prescribed or adopted certain terminology, most are actually relatively free of it. This work does not thus endeavour to imply that usage of jargon is always necessary, or even beneficial. Jargon, in the end, is just another tool in an author’s repertoire to construct the story they envision.
Without further ado, the lexicon begins in the following chapter.