English

Noun

bheer ‎(countable and uncountable, plural bheers)

1. (dated, fandom slang, humorous) Beer.
   • 1959, Eney, Richard "Dick" Harris, Fancyclopedia II, B(H)EER:

     No less important to fannish than mundane drinking, this useful beverage is even given divine honors by the sect of Beeros and worshipped as either Beer or Bheer. (The latter substance is also used in celebrating certain mysteries of the Ghuist religion.)

   • 1966 November, Grennell, Dean A., “A Pilgrim in Never-Never Country”, in Science-Fiction Five-Yearly, number 4, page 20:

     I miss tomato juice in glass bottles and I miss Heilemann's Special Export bheer.

   • 1997 October 12, Morris M. Keesan, “Re: Declining Attendance at Cons?”, in alt.fandom.cons, Usenet, message-ID <3443316c.1023995@news.std.com>:

     But this misses the point that "bheerish" drinkers don't necessarily go to pubs for the bheer. I can drink a bhottle of bheer at home a lot cheaper than I can bhuy it in a pub, but I can't get the experience of socializing with a group of other bheer-drinkers. And even if the pub serves ghood bheer, the presence of the 100 gin/whisky/CocaCola/springwater "multi-genre" drinkers may make it sufficiently difficult to find the other 5 bheer fans in the crowd, that it dilutes the bheerish experience and makes it more worth my while saving my bheer budget for going down the road to the other pub that may have a smaller selection of bheer but a higher concentration of the people I want to drink with.

   • 2003 April 2, Kathy Gallagher, “Is Bheer really one of the 4 fannish food groups”, in rec.arts.sf.fandom, Usenet, message-ID <v8m5t8iddt0050@corp.supernews.com>:

     Correct me, but I think the 4 fannish food groups are sugar, chocolate, grease and caffiene^[sic]. Bheer doesn't fit in here unless you put chocolate in with sugar.

Usage notes

This fanspeak word is used instead of the standard form to indicate a fannish context or an association with science fiction fandom.

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8, page 15