Where is the true definition of spoof?
Spoof, as a word, has a number of meanings but most of them are very similar. The word 'spoof' can be used as both a verb and a noun, and it generally defined as an item of nonsense or tomfoolery, or the action of creating such situations. The history of the word spoof comes from a man called Arthur Roberts, who created a game called Spoof and involved tricking the other players. Since then the term has expanded to have many uses, and spoof is now most often used (particularly on the internet) to discuss items of parody or jest.
What is spoof? A definition of spoof
The dictionary definition is somewhat stale, and the best way to define spoof, or indeed any term, is often to simply give examples. A spoof can be a number of things, from any number of sources. It is often used in comedy to provide alternative presentations of familiar items, such as the mock news programme Brass Eye from Chris Morris. Spoof and satire are very commonly associated since they lend themselves to each other in comedy terms.
Examples of spoof
When a spoof is defined as a parody, a spoof is often created as a send-up of an item that is originally far more formal. Spoof news items, in particular, are very popular on the internet, and many spoof news websites are parodies or homages to other more serious publications. For example, the BBC News web site is often aped by spoofers and satirists (see here for definition of satire, and you can see many examples of spoof news websites on our spoof news page.
Other examples of spoof come from the technological world, where computer users can alter parts of their computer in order to disguise certain parts of their function as having come from a different source. The two most common things to spoof on a computer are IP addresses and Mac addresses. Each device that is connected directly to the internet is provided an IP address, which is intended to be a unique idenitifer for that device. However, this also will identify the individual and in order to diguise their actual source some will attempt to hide or spoof their IP address along the way. Mac addresses are similarly unique hex identifying codes that can be spoofed in order to fool a connecting device to handshake.