firechild
First Grade
- Messages
- 7,936
Love how the written word can be twisted... & hate being pedantic but no....fan is the word (which means a follower of something etc) & is not a derivitive of any other word. The -atitic/al and -atiticism adds the obsessive OTT part to it, not the other way round.
So I guess that makes you the latest member of the ever-growing & widespread LU OTT loseratical cult that obsessively follows loseraticism (& yes, before you say it, there's no such words)
Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other recognized sources define it as a shortened version of the word fanatic, and the word did first become popular in reference to an enthusiastic follower of a baseball team. (Fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion". It comes from the Modern Latin fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired".)