letterhack
English
Etymology
letter + hack
Noun
letterhack (plural letterhacks)
- (dated, fandom slang) A fan who is a prolific writer of letters to periodicals.
- 1946 Fall, Jewett, Tom, Startling Stories, volume 14, number 2, page 102:
- Nowadays a letter-hack says things simply, which is, after all, the best way. Take any good story. You don't find long, stilted sentences with long-winded descriptions (which was one reason I put ‘The Dimension of Chance’ last). So listen and learn, letter-hacks.
- 1958, Holland, Ralph Merridette, Ghu's Lexicon, page 12:
- LETTERHACK - An actifan who specializes in writing letters for zines. One of the simplest and yet the most effective phases of fanac. Give the letterhack a ream of paper, stamps, and one or two other letterhacks for him to argue with, and he will keep happy and tractable for months.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:letterhack.
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Synonyms
- epistolarian, loccer
Verb
letterhack (third-person singular simple present letterhacks, present participle letterhacking, simple past and past participle letterhacked)
- (dated, fandom slang) To write letters to periodicals very frequently.
- 1976 November, White, Ted, “Twenty Five Years? That's--”, in Science-Fiction Five-Yearly, number 6, page 23:
- It was in those letter columns that I was first exposed to the concept of fandom. Letterhacking was in high bloom in 1951; the letter columns were filled with chatty letters from all sorts of people, the names of whom I soon came to recognize.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:letterhack.
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Holonyms
- fanac
References
- “letterhack” in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford University Press, 2007, →ISBN, page 110.
- letterhack n. at the OED Science Fiction Citations Project