Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 November 22

= November 22 =

Does the phrase "fanum tax" have any meaning or is it just a very recent meme?
Of course a fanum is an ancient Roman temple and taxes are fees owed to the government, but I can only assume a fanum tax has nothing to do with either of those things. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 20:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * According to Know Your Meme, the "Fanum" in question is the handle of a Twitch user, not anything related to ancient Roman temples. Deor (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * In that case, it could be interpreted that the "tax" part might pertain to cheering bits to Fanum during their livestreams or paying for a month's subscription to their channel, with the word "tax" possibly implying that it may be obligatory for fans to financially support that particular user either way as opposed to other users. But then again, I could just be taking the tax part of the phrase a bit too literally. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 01:38, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Apparently, Fanum called the portion of others' food that he took and ate his "tax". Deor (talk) 12:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * On a few occasions where people try to mock Generation Alpha, I've come across the sentence "you so fanum tax", suggesting the phrase fanum tax is also an adjective. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 13:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Adjectivising noun phrases is a feature of English lexical flexibility not limited to the term under discussion here. Folly Mox (talk) 15:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)