Although if you want to pin down the very first coinage/use, double-checking there would be helpful, as would asking any of Terry’s friends (not to mention his widow, Carol Carr) of the time: Greg Benford, Lizzy Lynn, Avedon Carol, Ted White, Debbie Notkin — it’s a long list, Terry had a lot of friends, and was much loved and is much missed.

And maybe Terry picked it up from someone else, let me stress. All I can say is that I got it from him, and he’s the source for the other folks in our circle of the time (there were many overlapping circles, of course, as there always are), so far as I know and recall.

It’s definitely the sort of usage that Terry would coin, to be sure. But that’s hardly definitive.

I think it’s most likely he picked it up from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, though David might have come from it via other routes; you can ask either. Age of Wonders would have done a lot to spread the usage beyond our small circle of a few dozen people using the coinage “skiffy” up to that point (which I hope it’s clear we used as ironic commentary to respond to the then-growing usage of “sci-fi” by people then new to, or outside of, fandom).

As I suggested in email, I’d also suggest asking Carol Carr and Robert Lichtman what they recall.

David Hartwell’s original cited usage, however, is, ironically, incorrect in citing “skiffy” as used by “the science fiction reader.”

In 1982 this was absolutely untrue. But David was not an expert on fanhistory, or usage or quotes stemming from fanhistory, as opposed to science fiction itself.

(Some of us, particularly pnh, got him to correctly credit Peter Graham with originating “the golden age of science fiction is twelve,” which Peter, a former co-editor of fanzines with, yes, Terry Carr, first used in an issue of the fanzine Void in 1957; David previously had it as anon.)

Geez, I wish your blog had a preview option, so I could double-check if I’ve accidentally left open a tag.

That’s exactly what I remember. And I unaware of any earlier use, and I think I’m in a fairly good, though certainly not absolutely definitive, position to speak to this, given my past knowledge of fanhistory and fan usage.

Unless someone can point to a specific, citable, prior usage, I’d go with that. I’d also like to see the specific cite to what’s alleged to be the specifically cited first use, though, of course.

“I opted for ‘circa 60s’ for three (what I believe are very good reasons): I can’t believe it took two decades for FANS to coin Skiffy from Scifi”

Nonetheless, I’m as close to certain as I can be that it’s true. I’m unaware of any earlier usage, and can absolutely state authoritatively that if there were any prior usage to that date it would have been incredibly obscure.

You can either take my word for this, or not, but otherwise please do ask any other fanhistorians you like; ask on the Timebinders mailing list, or any surviving authority.

“much of fandom’s earlier works have NOT been seen, read or catalogued by those who put such things on the web”

Yes, but they’re not me. I know more than they do, on when which fannish usage came into use, in most cases.

And, as I said, ask anyone else you think is in a good position to know. Perhaps Joe Siclari, or Ted White, for instance.

I see the oft-unreliable, sometimes reliable, Wikipedia has an entry on “skiffy” and cites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_of_Science_Fiction

That several-times-updated Encyclopedia had most such contributions written by Dave Langford, if you were unaware of it. It’s generally an extremely reliable resource, so far as I know, though I’d ask David himself what he knows about that entry.

I’ll drop him a line to ask.

Smith’s Skylark of Space was finished in 1916 and it is clearly SF. In those days such novels were called Scientific Romances. The term described the works of Verne and Flamarion and was invented in 1886 by Charles Howard Hinton.

It used to be that SciFi was TV or movies and SF was literature, but that turned out to be too controversial. Secretly I use SF to describe written Science Fiction when I am with people I trust. I use the term Scifi where it is possible that I could be attacked by Dr. Who fans.

I opted for “circa 60s” for three (what I believe are very good reasons): I can’t believe it took two decades for FANS to coin Skiffy from Scifi; much of fandom’s earlier works have NOT been seen, read or catalogued by those who put such things on the web; I didn’t want to get yelled at by the inevitability of someone showing up with an earlier, provable citation.

I can’t say for sure who coined that usage, but those who picked up on using it jokingly, by the Seventies, centered around those of us who picked it up from Terry Carr.

I’d also observe that it had variant usage: some just used it ironically to refer to all science fiction, while others used it more specifically to refer to bad stuff, aka “sci-fi,” which, of course, has now become the generically accepted mainstream term for the field. Sigh. (We lost that battle a long time ago.)

But “skiffy” was, to be clear, a direct response to the “sci-fi” usage, as an ironic repronunciation of it, sometimes used to somewhat different purposes.

Offhand I don’t recall seeing it in use prior to the mid-Seventies, though; do you have any pointers to earlier use, including, as you say, the Sixties? I’d be quite interested if you did.

Gernsback:
1923 “Scientific Fiction (number)”
1926 “Scientifiction” (STF)
1930 Science Fiction (SF)

Heinlein
Circa 1947 Speculative Fiction (SF)

Ackerman
circa 1954 Scifi

Fans
Circa 1960s Skiffy

Network Idiots
2009 SyFy

Davidson
2009 SkYfFY

If we’re being picky, as you allude, not until Gernback had to start Science Wonder Stories (and Air Wonder Stories) in 1930, did he have to invent a new term, “science fiction,” to replace his original “scientifiction.”

Although the original did leave us with that now little-used abbreviation of “stf.”

Used to watch Rocketman and Superman in the late fifties. I guess these shows helped to fuel my imagination with alien world and stories I could put into print.

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