{"id":2392,"date":"2009-03-17T13:34:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-17T18:34:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-03-27T21:23:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T02:23:34","slug":"sci-fi-syfy-and-forry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2009\/03\/17\/sci-fi-syfy-and-forry\/","title":{"rendered":"Sci-fi, Syfy, and Forry"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems the Sci-Fi channel is changing its name to Syfy. The stated reason for the change is to make something that can be trademarked, a name that can be owned. I guess it’s as good a business reason as most. And I can’t get too upset at renaming a channel that has wrestling as one of its staples. <\/p>\n

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But the outflow of indignation from (us) geeks is a little fun to watch. It’s as if the network officials saw Sci-Fi as a market to attack, so they put on the costume, swooped in, and when they were sated, they changed clothes again. Hey, it could be true.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But I’ve been around the ghetto long enough that it’s all old news. When I was selling my first stories to Analog, I was told “Don’t use sci-fi<\/b>, it’s science fiction<\/b>. Sci-fi was made up by Forry Ackerman<\/a> as a riff off of hi-fi.” This wisdom was handed down with the implication that one of fandom’s legends was just a little too pandering to the masses for the true believers. The advice probably didn’t take as well for me, because Forry had bought my very first story as a filler in the back of the Perry Rhodan series of translations. (Don’t look it up. It’s forgettable.) <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But sci-fi wasn’t the only attempt to name the genre. There was scientifiction<\/a> and when the tide was turning away from science, it was speculative fiction<\/b>, and it’s derivitive, spec-fic<\/b>. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There are certainly others, but these are the ones that come to mind. I guess the whole question about “Syfy” is whether it will have anything to do with literature of the mind. Certainly not if they use the opportunity to add more wrestling.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems the Sci-Fi channel is changing its name to Syfy. The stated reason for the change is to make something that can be trademarked, a name that can be owned. I guess it’s as good a business reason as most. And I can’t get too upset at renaming a channel that has wrestling as… Continue reading Sci-fi, Syfy, and Forry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[294,295,8,296],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-CA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}