Science Fiction 的縮寫：sf or sci-fi？

之前在寫 Exploring the Matrix 一書的短介時就被問到 sf 和 sci-fi 有何不同，儘管在 Edward James 的《二十世紀的科幻》──〈緒論〉裡就有很簡明的解釋，趁現在搬家搬完，該寫的也寫完的空檔，比照〈硬科幻（？）vs. 軟科幻（？）〉，在不動用重裝備的情況下寫一篇簡單的說明。

一樣來看看幾部行內辭典／百科的定義〔照慣例，粗體字是我標的重點〕：

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 2nd ed.

SF: (by Peter Nicholls, p. 1062)

Pronounced "esseff", the preferred abbreviation of "science fiction" within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic SCI FI. In this volume -- as often elsewhere -- it is rendered in lower-case letters.

SCI FI: (by Peter Nicholls, p. 1078-1079)

Pronounced "sky fi" or "si fi", an abbreviation for "science fiction", said to have been introduced by Forrest J. ACKERMAN, a prominent fan fond of word-play, in the 1950s, when the term "hi-fi" was becoming popular. Never much used within the sf community, the term became very popular with journalists and media people generally, until by the 1970s it was the most common abbreviation used by nonreaders of sf to refer to the genre, often with an implied sneer. Some critics within the genre, Terry CARR and Damon KNIGHT among them, decided that, since the term was derogatory, it might be critically useful in distinguishing sf hack-work -- particularly ill written, lurid adventure stories -- from sf of a more intellectually demanding kind. Around 1978 the critic Susan WOOD and others began pronouncing the term "skiffy". In 1980s-90s usage "skiffy", which sounds friendlier than "sci fi", has perhaps for that reason come to be less condemnatory. Skiffy is colourful, sometimes entertaining, junk sf: STAR WARS is skiffy.

我不是很滿意百科對 sf 的解釋，因為他沒加入 sf 的多重意義。不過重點有抓到，sf 是行內慣用的縮寫，而 sci-fi 是「非」科幻人用的，而且帶有輕蔑的語氣。至於 sci-fi 解釋中的最後一句，我個人認定那是舉例，而不是拿來當作「噢，Star Wars 是假科幻，Star Trek 是不折不扣的真科幻」的例證，畢竟大多數人，不管行內外，也是稱 Star Trek 為 sci-fi，而不是 sf。在這裡用 Star Wars，我想只是反映它比較紅，比較為人所知罷了。至於 skiffy 還真的有行內鷹派人士堅持使用，像 David G. Hartwell 在他的 Age of Wonders 裡就一直用個不停。


Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy (by Gary K. Wolfe)
SF: (p. 117)

(S.F., S-F). Ambiguous abbreviation almost universally favored in the science fiction community over the more journalistic Sci-Fi, but even less clearly defined. SF (or sf) is most often used as shorthand for science fiction, but has also been used for Science Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, or structural Fabulation. Widely popularized even outside the science fiction community by Judith Merril in her series of "year's best" anthologies (1956-1969), all of which used the SF rubric, the usage has since become so prevalent that Isaac Asimov has suggested that "speculative fiction" may have been coined as an attempt to retain the initials SF while abandoning the more restrictive use of "science" as a modifier [14]. Some writers now prefer to use the term without specifying its particular meaning; if sci-fi is the "nigger" of the field, SF is its "Ms."

SCI-FI: (p. 114)

Neologism coined by science fiction fan Forrest J. Ackerman and which has become anathema to many science fiction writers and readers. Perhaps because of its widespread use in the popular media in what often seems a denigrating or stereotyping manner, "sci-fi" has, in effect, become science fiction's equivalent of "nigger." More recently, however, some writers and critics have begun to suggest that the term may in face have a legitimate use in describing highly formulaic mass-audience entertainments, and in particular Hollywood movies. Issac Asimov, for example, defines sci-fi as "trashy material sometimes confused, by ignorant people, with s.f." and cites the film Godzilla Meets Mothra as an example [14].（想不到哥吉拉跟魔斯拉被老艾點名哩） Damon Knight has suggested the term be used for "the crude, basic kind of s.f. that satisfies the appetite for pseudo-scientific marvels without appealing to any other portion of the intellect" (he also suggests the term be pronounced "skiffy") [111]. Somewhat less condemnatory, Elizabeth Anne Hull has suggested that films such as Star Wars might appropriately be termed sci-fi to distinguish them from the more complex (but still not clearly defined) fictions labeled SF. Neither argument has gained much acceptance outside the science fiction community, however, and "sci-fi" remains in wide use as a popular media term for science fiction in general.

Gary K. Wolfe 這邊就比較詳細了。他說明 sf 現行用法的不確定性，並且標示 sci-fi 和影視娛樂科幻的連結。為何拿 Star Wars 來當範例的典故也提了一些。nigger 和 Ms. 的比方十分傳神。


Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature (by Brian Stableford)
SF: (p. 311)

An abbreviation of "science fiction" which became the standard label applied to the genre in the letter columns of pulp magazines, fanzines, and on the spines and covers of paperback books. its iconic significance encouraged the coinage of other proposed generic labels with the same initials, including speculative fiction and structural fabulation. The emergence of the rival contraction sci-fi initiated a contest whose initial outcome was the assignation of the two terms to separate aspects of the genre, sf being preferred with reference to printed texts, sci-fi with reference to products of the visual media. By the early 21st century, however, sci-fi seemed likely to displace its rival in all contexts.

SCI-FI: (p. 307)

An abbreviation of "science fiction" coined in the early 1960s by Forrest J. Ackerman by analogy with "hi-fi". He intended it as a complimentary term but when it began to displace sf in the jargon of newspaper and TV reporters -- who thought of the genre primarily as an aspect of movie and TV production -- the typically patronizing and casually insulting tone of such reportage, blended with blithe ignorance of the fact that sf had a long and august literary history, resulted in its falling into extreme disrepute in the 1970s within the sf community, whose members routinely insisted on pronouncing it as "skiffy" in order to make their contempt and resentment audible. Once it had been taken up as a label by the satellite-TV Sci-Fi Channel in the 1980s, however, it became a convenient way to distinguish between media sf and literary sf. Given that different media manifestations of sf are separated by a wider gulf than the respective manifestations of other genres -- because of hard sf's heavy emphasis on expository explanation, which cannot be adapted to the screen -- it might have been useful to retain two distinct labels. The dominance of TV and cinema sf ensured, however, that by the beginning of the 21st century "sci-fi" had begun to lose its pejorative connotations in the eyes of younger fans and critics and seemed increasingly likely to become established as the standard abbreviation descriptive of the entire genre.

Brian Stableford 把 sci-fi 的來由，以及過去行內為何鄙棄此縮寫的歷史講得更清楚，並闡明「sf 指的是文學科幻，sci-fi 則是媒體科幻」。他也提到自本世紀開始，由於媒體科幻的盛行和影響力，sci-fi 開始為新一輩（或許是從紮根時看的電視比讀的小說還多的世代起算）的行內讀者及評論者所接受，成為整個文類的標準縮寫。FantasyBookSpot 或許就是最好的例證：這個網站的幾位新銳評論家提供高品質的行內小說評論，但他們把科幻類型叫作 sci-fi。

因此，你真的要我表態的話，現在的我不像沒出國之前那樣堅持一定要用 sf 來代表科幻。而且 sf 的不明確定義實在很好用，有時可以當科幻解釋，有時甚至可以放大解釋成整個幻想文類。假如再經過數十年的演變，漸漸能達成共識的話，sf 用來指涉整個包含科幻、奇幻、恐怖的大幻想文類，sci-fi 拿來專指科幻亦無不可。但目前我還是比較習慣把 sf 指為文學科幻、sci-fi 為媒體科幻的現行用法。或許是因為行內學術訓練的關係，我對 Foundation 期刊投稿 Style Guide 中的一句話仍十分在意："sf is the abbreviation for science fiction -- not SF, and not sci-fi!"


PS. 要用 sci-fi 也要拼對，我已經不只一次看過寫成 "si-fi" 的情況了......=.= 那還不如寫成 skiffy 嘎～～～