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Jesse Sheidlower

jessesheidlower@mastodon.social

<p>Lexicographer. <a href="http://sfdictionary.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no"><span class="invisible">http://</span><span class="">sfdictionary.com</span><span class="invisible"></span></a>. The F-Word. Ex-OED. Past President, American Dialect Society. Adjunct at Columbia. Coder. Barbells. Threesome Tollbooth bar manager.</p>

Posts

  • Post #2132640

    #Fandom antedating of the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;condom&amp;quot;, a jocular term for the milieu of SF conventions, from 1986 to 1968. https://sfdictionary.com/view/428/condom

  • Post #2132639

    #Fandom antedating of the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;conreport&amp;quot;, from 1953 to Ray Nelson in 1949. https://sfdictionary.com/view/429/conreport

  • Post #2132638

    #Fandom antedating of the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;fan film&amp;quot;, a film made by fans, from 1961 to 1956 (in reference to the same film). https://sfdictionary.com/view/2478/fan-film

  • Post #2132637

    @grammargirl The people who respond to such queries, or who complain to news organizations about the purported misuse of shibboleths, are a very, very, very tiny proportion of language users.

  • Post #2132636

    Unusually important antedating o&amp;#39;the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;time-travel&amp;quot; v., from 1933 to 1928. (OED has 1937.) (Also cleaned up the rest of the entry.) https://sfdictionary.com/view/486/time-travel

  • Post #2132635

    #Fandom antedating of the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;neopro&amp;quot;, a new professional writer, from Robert Silverberg in 1967 to Bob Tucker in 1960. https://sfdictionary.com/view/2584/neopro

  • Post #2132634

    New #anime entry for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction, published after a large amount of work: &amp;quot;Akira slide&amp;quot;. Best we have is only 2009, despite the fact that there are visual homages from very soon after the 1988 movie; we&amp;#39;d welcome any antedatings! https://sfdictionary.com/view/2900/akira-slide

  • Post #2132633

    Incredibly trivial antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;ish&amp;quot;, an issue (of a periodical), from November 1937 to October 1937. But, bonus Esperanto context! https://sfdictionary.com/view/1526/ish

  • Post #2132632

    Two small but fascinating #fandom antedatings for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction, for &amp;quot;loc&amp;quot; &amp;#39;letter of comment&amp;#39;: The noun by 1 year, first appearing in text written in Japanese by English speakers (thanks to @erikas.online for her help with this): https://sfdictionary.com/view/1892/loc And the verb, also by 1 year to 1961, in a poem by Roger Ebert. Yes, *that* Roger Ebert! https://sfdictionary.com/view/2343/loc

  • Post #2132631

    New entry for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: As you know, we are obsessed with time travel, so we&amp;#39;re delighted to bring you the verb form of &amp;quot;time-slip&amp;quot;. From 1974 (describing an Aldiss story) onwards. https://sfdictionary.com/view/3088/time-slip

  • Post #2132630

    Today&amp;#39;s #fandom antedatings for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;filksing&amp;quot; n. from 1968 to 1961, and &amp;quot;filk singing&amp;quot; from 1965 to ca1961. Stay tuned for more &amp;quot;filk&amp;quot;-related antedatings next week! https://sfdictionary.com/view/1028/filksing https://sfdictionary.com/view/1362/filksinging

  • Post #2132629

    As promised, some more big &amp;quot;filk&amp;quot; antedates for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;filk&amp;quot; v. from 1978 to 1962; &amp;quot;filker&amp;quot; from 1981 to (the same) 1962, &amp;amp; &amp;quot;filking&amp;quot; from 1983 to 1976. #Fandom https://sfdictionary.com/view/1005/filk https://sfdictionary.com/view/181/filker https://sfdictionary.com/view/1361/filking

  • Post #2132628

    Today&amp;#39;s #fandom update for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;fillo&amp;quot;, a filler illustration in a fanzine. We&amp;#39;d had 1959 with a claim of a 1954 coinage; we now have two solid 1954 examples. https://sfdictionary.com/view/188/fillo

  • Post #2132627

    Today&amp;#39;s extremely trivial antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;illo&amp;quot;, an illustration, from 1945 to Forrest J. Ackerman in late 1944. https://sfdictionary.com/view/189/illo

  • Post #2132626

    Important #fandom antedatings for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction, for &amp;quot;mundane&amp;quot;: the rare &amp;quot;non-SF story&amp;quot; sense from 1946 to &amp;#39;43; &amp;quot;non-SF fan&amp;quot; from &amp;#39;63 to &amp;#39;60; &amp;quot;non-SFnal&amp;quot; adj. from &amp;#39;45 to &amp;#39;38. https://sfdictionary.com/view/2462/mundane https://sfdictionary.com/view/989/mundane https://sfdictionary.com/view/191/mundane

  • Post #663142

    More new entries for interstellar-travel fans, in the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: Today&amp;#39;s batch: &amp;quot;Arcturan&amp;quot; + vars., with 2 nouns +1 adj. From 1920 onwards, still in broad use. https://sfdictionary.com/view/3061/arcturan https://sfdictionary.com/view/3066/arcturan https://sfdictionary.com/view/3068/arcturan

  • Post #663141

    Antedating o&amp;#39;the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;actifan&amp;quot;, fr 1941 to 1940 (ref to Forrest J. Ackerman). Delighted to announce that this was sent in by Jeff Prucher, editor of the Hugo-winning Brave New Words, who is contributing once again! https://sfdictionary.com/view/1687/actifan

  • Post #663140

    Important #fandom antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;SMOF&amp;quot;, for Secret Master of Fandom, said to have been in use at the 1963 Worldcon, now has an actual example from 1963. https://sfdictionary.com/view/197/smof

  • Post #663139

    Observation: most major dictionaries (Merriam, Dictionary.com, American Heritage, Cambridge, Collins, etc.) only define _die_ (or _dice_) as a six-sided cube; no recognition of other shapes as used e.g. in TTRPGs. (OED, in an unrevised entry, allows for this in passing.)

  • Post #663138

    Back from vacation, and happy to report a one-year antedating of the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction for the fan term &amp;quot;fugghead&amp;quot;, to 1948, sent in by Jeff Prucher (I should have more to say about his project very soon!). https://sfdictionary.com/view/432/fugghead

  • Post #663137

    New entries for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: the long-awaited &amp;quot;dieselpunk&amp;quot;, coined in 2001: https://sfdictionary.com/view/3039/dieselpunk https://sfdictionary.com/view/3079/dieselpunk

  • Post #663136

    Important post by Jeff Prucher (editor of the Hugo-winning Brave New Words) about developing a corpus of fanzines to find antedatings for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction. (I&amp;#39;ll be publishing these in due course.) Interesting for DH as well as SF people! https://medium.com/@jprucher/adventures-in-the-data-mines-antedating-fanspeak-afb246dce8f5

  • Post #663135

    Antedating o&amp;#39;the day for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;RealSoonNow&amp;quot;, fannish = &amp;quot;eventually&amp;quot;, from 1959 (glossarial) to [1953], 1958. (The &amp;#39;53 example, while fannish, seems to be literal.) Also updated the def to clarify the irony. From Jeff Prucher. https://sfdictionary.com/view/2764/realsoonnow

  • Post #663134

    Today&amp;#39;s antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: the fan term &amp;quot;apazine&amp;quot; &amp;#39;an individual fanzine distributed by an APA&amp;#39;, from 1953 to 1948 (plus a [1942] in the form &amp;quot;fapazine&amp;quot;). Also, tweaked the defs of this and &amp;quot;APA&amp;quot;. https://sfdictionary.com/view/426/apazine

  • Post #663133

    New entries for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;stim&amp;quot;, for a (chemical) stimulant, and its derivatives &amp;quot;stim pill&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;stimtab&amp;quot;. 1950s onwards, famous authors. https://sfdictionary.com/view/1427/stim https://sfdictionary.com/view/1428/stim-pill https://sfdictionary.com/view/3082/stimtab

  • Post #663132

    Today&amp;#39;s extremely trivial antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;COA&amp;quot;, a change of address (in fanzine contexts), from 1961 to 1959. https://sfdictionary.com/view/427/coa

  • Post #663131

    Unusual bracketed antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: &amp;quot;ship&amp;quot;, a spaceship, fr the first English translation of Lucian of Samosata in 1663! But refers to a nautical ship caught in a whirlwind &amp;amp; then traveling the stars. Also updated the entry. https://sfdictionary.com/view/1389/ship

  • Post #621926

    For those interested in how Tolkien was first exposed to Welsh, here&amp;#39;s an article from the Journal of Tolkien Research with pictures of the Welsh coal-wagons Tolkien would have seen in as a child in Birmingham: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol23/iss1/11/