What is a "SHOTGUN" speaker cable??

Jig has it right. The mad milkman has it wrong.
Example: Kimber 8tc has eight wires in the cable and a pair is two eight wire cables. A regular pair has eight wires with pos. and neg. at each end, thus four for pos. and four for neg. Shotgun wire for 8tc has the same eight wires with only one connector at each end or four cables with eight wires each. Thus eight wires for pos and eight for neg. Oh and biwire generally has two connectors at amp end and four at speaker end.

The first time I heard the term "shotgun" was in the early 80's. It was used by MIT to describe a double run of 750 speaker wire.

I believe the term 'shotgun' refers to the cross-section resembling a 'double barrel shotgun.' That means two separate runs; one end of both cables terminate to a single point(amp end), the other terminated to connect in common bi-wire configuration.

Actually, I realize now that what I have described above is an external bi-wire configuration. True shotgun would be as mentioned by Jig: two separate cables joined to single pairs of terminations at BOTH ends.

This just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

So let me see if I have this right. If I was just hooking up one channel, this is what I would be faced with:

Shotgun = A strand of wire that terminates into 4 spades/bananas on the amp side and then 4 spades/bananas on the speaker side?

Traditional bi-wire = A strand of wire with 2 spades/bananas for the amp end and then 4 spades/bananas for the speaker side?

Sorry if this all seems quite redundant, but sometimes the nomenclature in this hobby loses a simpleton like me.

-Jake