[Ads-l] SF antedates

[Bill Mullins]

laser rifle - not in OED; OED SF Project 1966
1963 Los Angeles Times 29 Mar sec 4 p 2 col 1 (Newspapers.com)
"Laser 'Rifle' Spots Targets 7 Miles Away" [headline]

laser pistol - not in OED; OED SF Project has 12/1963
1963 Hartford Courant 15 May 4/4 (newspapers com)
"The exhibits will include demonstrations of small arms firing; an artillery demonstration; 'Nike in the Attack' motion picture; helicopter armament firing demonstrations; laser pistol (light ray) firing demonstrations, and howitzer and mortar firing demonstrations."

laser cannon - not in OED; OED SF Project has 1964
1962 _Family Weekly Magazine_ 16 Sep 4/3 (newspapers.com)
"In the event of an all-out war, an American artillery sergeant behind a small laser 'cannon' conceivably could point a powerful light beam at an enemy missile plunging toward us -- and the light would track the incoming warhead and destroy it with one intense burst."
light century - not in OED; OED SF Project has 1922
_Journal of the British Astronomical Association_  21 Nov 1908 p. 38 (hathitrust)
"Beyond this data begin to fail, but these results already show that the star-density up to a distance of 200 light-years is nearly uniform and such that there are about 2000 stars of a luminosity exceeding 0.01 of that of the Sun in a cubi light-century."


light day -- OED has 1965; OED SF Project has 9/1943
1933 Amazing Stories Nov 103/1 J. Lewis Burtt "When the Universe Shrank" (internet archive)
"These were spread out over the area of a circle of nearly one light-day in diameter."

little green man - OED SF Project has 1946; OED has 1942 for E.T. sense
1936 Astounding Stories Jan 34/2 "Moon Crystals" J. Harvey Haggard (internet archive)
"He had saved the little green man's life, and from that time on, Omar Klegg had been the one white man who could step foot on the bad-land soil of Venus without the aid of blazing needle-beam gats."
[this cite also slightly antedates "needle beam" for which OED SF has 12/1936]

lunarscape
OED SF Project has 1946; OED has 1965
1908 Macon MO _Republican_ 28 Mar 1/1 (newspapers.com)
"In short, when we gaze on and see at a glance one whole hemisphere of another world, 240,000 miles away, and the landscape, or rather Lunar-scape before us measuring 2163 miles across, we become interested in and amazed at the stupendous power of nature, and are inclined to believe that the Almighty Creator has left the moon in its present condition to show us how worlds are made."

Moon base -- OED and OED SF Project have 1947
1932 _Astounding Stories_ May 249/2 "Wandl, the Invader" by Ray Cummings (Internet Archive)
"It was for this the hovering Wandl fleet was waiting -- holding off from conflict until this Moon base was ready."




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