In an interview, Bill Shipton said this about the term "sploshing" as opposed to WAM:

"Sploshing came first! When we set up the mag, we called it SPLOSH! cos we wanted a fun name that sounded both wet and messy. Prior to that, fans hadn't had a name to unite them so we called them sploshers and the activity sploshing. WAM was the term used by the Americans when they joined in a few years later, thanks to a guy called Rob Blaine (now sadly in the great mudbath in the sky) setting up Messy Fun. Because Rob was a computer buff, he was much more internet-led and so the term WAM caught on amongst the U.S. messy community on the Net."

He was right. Imagine you ran a WAM web site, and you were trying to explain it to someone who had never seen it before or even heard of the wet and messy fetish. If you said it was all about sploshing, the person may well already have a clue that it's about doing something with some sort of substance, because sploshing is sort of onomatopoetic, meaning the word sounds like what it describes. If you said it was about wamming, then you would definitely have some more 'splainin to do.

Not only is "splosh" onomatopoetic, but it gains a certain association from other words that sound like it. For example: splash, slosh, slush, squish, swish, wash, or even slop. People already know what these words mean, so when you introduce them to the word "splosh," your work is already half done. And it really does sound like it could equally pertain to messy as well as wet.

For this reason, it seems to me that "splosh" is better conjugated into its various inflections. Sploshing, sploshed, and splosher (one who sploshes) just seem more intuitive than wamming, wammed, and wammer. Unless you are typing it out, "WAM" sounds like "wham" and could be confused at first with hitting something, (or with George Michael's band from the '80's).

To the uninitiated, "wet and messy" could automatically connote those things that we know are not part of our fetish--piss, poop, and other bodily functions--unless we are mindful to specify to the listener that they are not included. Sploshing on the other hand, probably because of its association with those other words, sounds like something that you'd do with a substance that already existed outside of the body. Or maybe it's just me.

Since splosh is not an acronym, it is ready to use in any context without changing its form: You cannot "wet and messy" somebody. But you can splosh them. We are not "wet and messiers," but we can be sploshers. You have to first fold "wet and messy" into its acronym state to do anything with it, such as wamming somebody or being a wammer or being wammed.

Do we capitalize WAM since it is an acronym? If so, do we capitalize WAMMERS too? Or do it like WAMmers? Wikipedia says, "The most common capitalization scheme seen with acronyms and initialisms is all-uppercase (all-caps), except for those few that have linguistically taken on an identity as regular words, with the acronymous etymology of the words fading into the background of common knowledge, such as has occurred with the words scuba, laser, and radar." Has WAM reached this point so we can just use it like a regular lower-case word? Maybe it has for us, but for the rest of the world?

It is also a little bothersome that it's called "wet AND messy," implying that the two are always presented together. You may only like messy stuff, but you're always calling it wet and messy. If you only like wetlook, then you can easily drop the WAM label altogether and just call it wetlook. But "messy" by itself is not really suitable for use as a noun the way "sploshing" is (actually sploshing is a gerund).

And how do you pronounce WAM? Is it with a long "a" or a short "a?" Being that we all type it more than speak it, I'm sure that half of us say it one way, and the other half say it the other.

The thing is that we are used to WAM, and we tend to stick with what we are used to saying. My question is, if Rob Blaine had called it sploshing on his web site, and Bill Shipton had called it WAM in his magazine, what term would we be using more today? All things considered, what is really the best term?

How about we just call it WSM?