OED SF database (UNCLASSIFIED)

Dan Goodman dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM
Tue Aug 19 03:37:08 UTC 2008


Mark Mandel wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel<thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: OED SF database (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yes to that! But there are two butterflies in this garden, both
> effecting great changes from tiny causes.
>
> One is Heinlein's butterfly,
Correction:  Ray Bradbury's butterfly

whose death in the Jurassic (?) era tips
> a close election in our time, a change invisible to all but the time
> travelers who left Present[0] and returned to Present[1].
>
> I don't know who gets credit for the other butterfly, which is
> associated with chaos theory. (Terry Pratchett used it, but didn't
> come up with it.) This one flaps its wing,&  the tiny air movement
> eventually causes a hurricane half a world away.
>
> m a m
> (Sent from my PDA)
>
>
> On 8/18/08, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC<Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil>  wrote:
>> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> "to butterfly", not in OED or OED SF database
>>
>> To implement "the butterfly effect".  OED has [1972] and 1979 for
>> "Butterfly effect", but should somehow reference Ray Bradbury's story
>> "The Sound of Thunder" (published in _Collier's_ June 28, 1952), in
>> which a time traveller steps on a butterfly in the time of dinosaurs,
>> and changes human history.
>>
>>   Jun 17 2006, 7:32 pm
>> "If you really want to butterfly Heinlein, have him
>> elected to the California State Assembly in 1938. "
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/d47d4a990fbd7e40?
>> hl=en
>>
>> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>> Caveats: NONE
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> Mark Mandel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Dan Goodman
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Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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