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

Thu Jul 16 04:35:04 UTC 2020

I haven't seen reference to the 1897 citation anywhere, but I don't really move in SF scholarly circles. I think OED's breakdown is correct; this is the modern sense, but in the still fairly unusual sense of "work of science fiction".

But the notion that the term "science fiction" went from "work of dubious science" to "work of speculative fiction" to a specific genre is intriguing. "Scientific romance" went through a similar transition a little bit earlier. The OED has citations for "scientific romance" as scientific speculation back to 1797 (although not necessarily used with opprobrium); the first citation I found for it as "work of SF" is from 1859 with reference to Balzac's Ursule Mirouet.

The list of things people called what we could call science fiction or speculative fiction from the 1850s to the 1920s is fairly long. 

On Monday, July 13, 2020, 02:42:40 PM PDT, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote: 

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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> > 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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> http://www.americandialect.org>

> >>
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