"slang" and "informal" as dict labels

[Mike Salovesh]

Catching up (I was out of town, bonding with my new granddaughter), I note
that on 2/17/2003 James A. Landau wrote, in part:

<<comments on SF/sci fi in the movies snipped>>

> PS to Mark Mandel---"speculative fiction" is an excellent umbrella term for
> combining SF (which theoretically consists of plausible extrapolations from
> the reader's world) and fantasy (which frankly creates a fictitious world,
> e.g. sorcery exists).  It is handy because most fans of written science
> fiction are also fans of fantasy and vice versa.  However historically "SF"
> is an abbreviation for "science fiction" and was in use before anyone coined
> "speculative fiction".

In all the exchanges on "SF" vs. "Sci Fi", I've been looking for someone to
acknowledge the term that antedates both. I believe it was Hugo Gernsback,
perhaps in the late 1920s, who called the genre "STF" and/or
"scientifiction". __Amazing Stories__, the magazine he once edited, was
talking about "STF" in the 1950s when I was still among the rabid actifen.

I still fondly remember my adventures in fandom in the 1945-1955 epoch.
Back then, I was headed to a career as a food chemist, following in the
footsteps of old Doc Smith, the classic SF author. (I met him in 48 or 49,
when he graciously responded to my invitation by speaking to the
newly-formed U of Chicago Science Fiction Club.) I quit my last job in
chemistry in 1954 to return to school. That's when I discovered something
called linguistic anthropology, and I've been an anthropologist ever since.
Something about that career change may have influenced my departure from
speculative fiction as an absorbing hobby/way of life. Nowadays, I look to
the genre only when I need distraction, not concentration.

Still, 10% of science fiction good enough that I'm perfectly willing to
wade through the 90% of it (like 90% of everything) that Ted Sturgeon told
us is crap.

--  mike salovesh     <m-salovesh-9 at alumni.uchicago.edu>     PEACE !!!

P.S.: Sturgeon produced his own corollaries to his classic law. Much more
modestly, when I first read it I proposed Salovesh's Three Lemmas to
Sturgeon's Law:

1.  It ain't 90, it's 99.

2.  It's worse than crap: it's shit.

3.  The remainder is worth searching for, because that's what makes
     it worthwhile to be a human being.