Language is an incomplete, ever-evolving method of communication. Few people realize, for example, that in Japanese there is no word for “goreslam”.

There are thousands of situations that there simply are not words for. Rich Hall noticed this in the early 1980’s and addressed it with a brilliant comedic bit called “Sniglets” where he attempted to create words for experiences that had yet to be named.

Heavy metal fans are often faced with events, circumstances and personality types that have yet to be named and, therefore, remain in a strange limbo between the tip of a person’s tongue and reality.

Here are a few terms that should help you identify things you’ve seen but can’t properly express…

Botulizing The Necronomicon-The habit shared by many death metal bands of improperly using medical textbook terminology and mixing it with satanic themes in order to sound both intelligent and sinister

Cairomaniac-A lyricist who writes song lyrics exclusively about Ancient Egypt (ex. See Karl Sanders, also Karl Sanders)

Dialectic Unrealism-The act of arguing that people should pay for albums when they can illegally download them for free

Disciples of the Swatch-People who mix ridiculous 1980’s fashion trends with heavy metal tee shirts (ex. Mixing Flashdance leg warmers, pink neon sunglasses and an Iron Maiden “Killers” tee-shirt)

Eight-Trackers-People who believe that metal albums sound better in a lower quality format

Finntrolling-When someone won’t stop sending you links to novelty metal bands that make them laugh but annoy you

Hellowhining-Complaining about falsetto vocals in power metal songs

Iron Maven-Any person who claims Iron Maiden got worse after Paul Di’Anno left

Lulufying-An album that seems so terrible in concept that you can’t imagine listening to it (ex. Morbid Angel’s follow-up to Illud, in which they plan on mixing death metal with yacht rock, could be the most lulufying record of the year)

Maidenflation-The bizarre phenomena in which a metal record, no matter how weak it is, improves in people’s eyes as it ages

Merzbowing Out-Risking life and limb by running to flip to the next song when the one 52 minute noise song you have comes up on random

National Socialist Anxiety Disorder-Fear that skinheads will stab or strangle you in a mosh pit

Norse Code-References to obscure Scandinavian mythological figures in black metal songs

Oldbangery-Claiming to have seen bands like Venom and Iron Maiden minutes after their careers began in a club with 5 other people

Queenswrong-When a band attempts to create something that sounds similar to Queensryche’s “Operation Mindcrime” and instead make boring, yuppie metal records (see the last 3 Geoff Tate Queensryche albums)

(See also: Righting A Queenswrong-Kicking a singer out of a band because he draws to much attention away from the actual music)

Scamburglary-Shoplifting a Scatterbrain album

Slambologist-Someone who can discuss, in detail, the difference between the first two Suffocation albums

Slamborghini-A beat-up, broken down car that has a series of heavy metal bumper stickers strewn haphazardly on the back

Vikermaniac-A person, who cannot stop mentioning to anyone who will pay the slightest bit of attention, the details of Varg’s murder of Euronymous