[Ads-l] UAP - unidentified aerial phenomena (or phenomenon)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Update: the 1958 "UAP" is  from Avram Davidson's story, "The Grantha
Sighting," in the April, 1958, ish of _Fantasy and Science Fiction_, p. 58:

https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v014n04_1958-04_PDF/page/n47/mode/2up?q=sightings

JL

On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 10:33 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks, Garson.  And many thanks for ID'ing the month and page.
>
> I was a saucer buff from 1965 to the late '70s and read all I could find
> on the subject that wasn't totally screwball. I must confess, though, that
> when the Navy used "UAP" when it released UFO footage in 2017, the acro
> seemed novel.
>
> Of course, "aerial phenomenon" is a more objective description than
> "flying object."
>
> In my day, the acronym was so rarely employed that it never fully
> registered on me. Rereading some of the exx. above, I'm sure I'd have
> thought it no more than a marginal eccentricity. It doesn't seem to appear,
> for example, in Ron Story's extensive _UFO Encyclopedia_ (1980).
>
> It seems likely that Davidson (a prominent sf writer) was the originator.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 1:54 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I meant: Great work, JL!
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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