[Ads-l] Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction" Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?

[Dan Goncharoff]

I don't know about it being obsolete. Science fiction has been used as an
epithet regarding nuclear fusion in this century many, many times.

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 5:15 PM Baker, John <JBAKER at stradley.com> wrote:

> I think this is the OED’s definition A.2.a.:  “An apparently unlikely
> scientific theory or assertion. Obsolete. rare.”  The OED cites an earlier
> example, from 1881, about an incorrect theory of the tides:
>
> 1881   Daily News<javascript:void(0)> 16 Apr. 7/1   I wonder who really
> believes that science-fiction about the earth being so much more powerfully
> attracted that it really leaves the waters behind, and so produces the rise
> of water on the opposite side of the earth.
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of
> Laurence Horn
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 11:12 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
>
> External Email - Think Before You Click
>
>
> > On Jul 13, 2020, at 9:57 AM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM<mailto:
> pjreitan at HOTMAIL.COM>> wrote:
> >
> > An earlier example of "science-fiction book" from 1894, in a poem about
> the origin of language, with reference to Darwin's Origin of the Species.
> >
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55261042/weekly-herald/<
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55261042/weekly-herald>
> >
> > "So went it on for countless ages:
> > No neater form expression took:
> > Is it not written in the pages
> > Of Darwin's science-fiction book?"
> >
> > Weekly Herald (Calgary, Alberta), February 2, 1894, page 1.
> >
> >
>
> That’s great. I often wondered what the first words spoken were, and now I
> know. Who knew?
>
> “Science fiction” = ’scientific findings I condemn for ideological
> reasons’ is a nice foreshadowing of current applications of “fake news”...
>
> LH
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:
> ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>> on behalf of Randy Alexander <
> strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM<mailto:strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>>
> > Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 4:39:38 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> <
> ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>>
> > Subject: Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
> >
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> > Poster: Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM<mailto:
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> > Subject: Re: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> > Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Does that make Etidorhpa nominally the first science fiction novel? I
> read
> > that in high school around 1980.
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 08:01 Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu<mailto:
> fred.shapiro at yale.edu>> wrote:
> >
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> >> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:
> ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>>
> >> Poster: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU<mailto:
> fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>>
> >> Subject: Has the Earliest Modern Usage of the Term "Science Fiction"
> >> Gotten Any Attention from Science Fiction Historians?
> >>
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> I am just curious about something. Maybe Jeffrey Prucher or someone else
> >> c=
> >> an help me. It seems to me that an 1897 citation in the OED is the
> >> earlies=
> >> t known example of the modern usage of the term "science fiction," 30
> >> years=
> >> before Gernsback:
> >>
> >> 1897 H. B. Mason in Pharmaceut. World 20 May 592/1 My last remembrance
> >> =
> >> had been of reading Mr. [J. U.] Lloyd's Etidorhpa... The complete arrest
> >> of=
> >> bodily function and tissue waste which the central figure of that
> >> remarkab=
> >> le science-fiction achieved at the point where gravitation ceases,
> >> somewher=
> >> e between here and China, impressed me deeply.
> >>
> >> Have science fiction historians or scholars picked up on this important
> >> cit=
> >> ation? It is referring to an individual instance of science fiction
> >> writin=
> >> g rather than the genre as a whole, but the usage is essentially the
> same
> >> a=
> >> s the modern one.
> >>
> >> Fred Shapiro
> >>
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