Of late I've seen "dieselpunk," steampunk," and "gangnam" used on some news sites in their entertainment sections. AFAIK, a punk is a piece of tender used to light fires or light the fuse of an old canon, and is used colloquially to mean a low-life person. What has this to do with diesels or steam? As for "gangnam," that sounds like a contraction for "gangster" and Vietnam." Yet when I looked it up it said it's a ritzy shopping district in Seoul, South Korea. South Korean yuppies??? Huh? What are these so-called "entertainment" sites going on about?

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or light the fuse of an old canon,

You can fire off Bibles?

Here are some explanations of the first two from TV Tropes, you already know Gangnam is a district in Seoul:

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A ... genre of Speculative Fiction based on the 1920s-1950s period, spiced up with retro-futuristic innovations and occult elements. The dieselpunk narrative is characterized by conflict vs the undefeatable (nature, society, cosmic), strong use of technology, and Grey and Gray Morality.

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Generally, dieselpunk can take inspiration from 1920s German Expressionist films, Film Noir, 1930s Pulp Magazines and Radio Dramas, Crime and wartime comics, period propaganda films and newsreels, wartime pinups, and other entertainment of the early 20th century. As this covers a broad spectrum, the precise sources of inspiration can vary greatly between dieselpunk works. Like Steam Punk, Dieselpunk is a genre dictated primarily by its aesthetics rather than by its thematic content. Both grime and glamour have their place in dieselpunk.

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The term Dieselpunk was popularized by Lewis Pollak and Dan Ross in 2001 as the genre for their RPG Children of the Sun. Pollak stated that it was intended to be on the "darker, dirtier side of Steam Punk" and should be considered a "continuum between steampunk and Cyber Punk."

About steampunk:

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Retro-style Speculative Fiction set in periods where steam power is king. Very often this will be in an Alternate Universe where the internal combustion engine never displaced the steam engine, and as a result all manner of cool steam-driven technologies have emerged, ranging from Airships to submarines ... Largely, steampunk runs on Rule Of Cool. Sometimes combined with the work of Charles Babbage on mechanical computers to produce a kind of retro Cyber Punk set entirely in the Victorian era or a close analogue, with Dickensian exploitation.

Thanks, arnie. I guess I'm too damned old to wrap my head around these concepts. Why isn't steampunk called Newcommen or Watt punk in keeping with Dieselpunk?

Why isn't steampunk called Newcommen or Watt punk in keeping with Dieselpunk?

Because somebody called it steampunk, and it stuck. Cyberpunk has been around at least since the early '70s. That's roughly three decades. Just like -orama, -burger and -gate, -punk has become a suffix. And, those morphemes mean 'view', 'of a city', and 'lane'. I was invited to a party last Hallowe'en that had a steampunk theme. (If you want to get an idea of what that might have looked like, google steam in images.)

I had never heard or read dieselpunk before, but I did have some idea what kind of genre it might be, confirmed by arnie's citations.

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Originally posted by Geoff:
Thanks, arnie. I guess I'm too damned old to wrap my head around these concepts. Why isn't steampunk called Newcommen or Watt punk in keeping with Dieselpunk?

Steampunk came first. Diesel refers to the type of fuel for the dominant motive power, not the inventor. Actually, since it's mostly set in the 1920s-1950s (or their analogues in an alternative universe) it would be better named petrolpunk (or gasolinepunk on your side of the pond).

Since Herr Diesel called his invention an ölmotor, even that doesn't fit. Ah, well, as several have said before, I ought not to expect language to make sense.