[Ads-l] Antedating Hugo Award

[Bill Mullins]

The OED SF Project has a Jul 1950 entry for "Hugo Award", previously submitted by me.  It should be considered a "bracketed" cite, as it doesn't refer to the same award that carries the name today.  And sometime since I sent that one in, the actual OED has come up with an Apr 1950 site, for the same not-the-real-Hugo award.

The following is the earliest usage that I've seen in print for the current famous award.  It is in reference to the Science Fiction Achievement Awards presented at Philcon II, the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, at which these awards were first presented.

"There is no official name for the Awards themselves.  It seems the word got around that they were to be called 'Hugos' (after the father of science-fiction, Hugo Gernsback).  That isn't so.  If the fans decide that 'Hugos' are the proper name for the Awards then they shall be called 'Hugos'."-- Lyle Kessler, _Fantasy Times_ #184 2 Aug 1953, p. 2
http://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Fantasy_Times/Fantasy_Times53082-02.jpeg

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