8 June 2019
Photo-essayist and pink (generations before it was co-opted into service for breast cancer awareness) profiteer Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse, entered the growing “science faction” market in the late 1970s with OMNI. Presenting original fiction, speculative essays, and other sci-fi-geekery, the slick paper magazine also included games and contests and fun. Contest Editor Scot Morris invited readers to play, sweetening the inducement by offering cash prizes for “best entrants.” I frequently played, but never won, never got paid, and am STILL not a professional wordsmith.
Not that I wasn’t noticed. After disbursing the gelt to the elites, Morris saw fit to honorably mention some of the hoi polloi.
I made that cut twice.
In 1979, Morris invited readers to contribute “scientific graffiti” such as might be found on the bulkheads of spacecraft or in the halls o’ high learnin’, and deemed entrant Anthony Reynolds’ offering,
“Microwaves frizz your heir,” tops.
Lower he cites my own, “Entropy isn’t what it used to be.”
In 1983, he began assembling his “Fractured Dictionary” and asked for “redefinitions for up to three words” and then declared that the best trio came from Chris Doyle, to wit:
Circular saw: “A rose is a rose is a rose.”
Digger wasp: A preppy archaeology student.
Damnation: The Netherlands
Harrumph! Some sore losers might count FIVE words up there in the redefinition column, but that would be mingy and graceless. Even more mingy and graceless would be to point out that while an example is an example is an example, it is NOT a definition. Instead they’ll restrain themselves, and simply direct the reader to a more elegant (and honorable) entry which does not stray into ambiguous compound word territory but simply redefines three INDIVIDUAL words, so:
Ambidextrous: A sugar that is its own stereoisomer.
Analogy:
Overprotective response of the immune system to foreign protein.
Binary: Frugal fiscal policy.