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

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Apr 13 20:39:09 UTC 2023


Not in my existing thread. I must have trashed it somehow.

JL

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:39 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Garson provided that cite info in the original thread in October:
>
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2022-October/162459.html
>
> Also included in my February Twitter thread (with a hat tip to Garson):
>
> https://twitter.com/bgzimmer/status/1626924403622543362
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 3:31 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> > >
> > >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


More information about the Ads-l mailing list