Full record for off-trail adj.
| Definition | science fiction, fantasy, or horror |
| OED requirements | antedating 1947 |
| Earliest cite | Raymond A. Palmer in Amazing Stories |
| Comment | Fred Galvin submitted a 1957 cite from Sam Moskowitz's "How Science Fiction Got Its Name".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1948 cite from a letter from Russell Harold Woodman in Thrilling Wonder Stories.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1947 cite from an editorial by Raymond A. Palmer in Amazing Stories.
John Locke submitted a cite from Henry Kuttner's "Selling the Fantasy Story" in an (unpaginated) electronic verion of Writer's Digest from March 1938; we would like to verify this in a print edition. We would like cites of any date from other authors. Since there is a standard English definition of "off-trail" meaning "unusual," citations should contain enough context to indicate that the sense is SF/F/H. |
| Last modified | 6 July, 2008 |
Citations for off-trail adj.
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| 1947 R. Palmer Observatory in Amazing Stories Oct. 7/2 | Don Wilcox gives us ‘The Kettle In The Pit’ as one of his ‘off-trail’ offerings. |
| 1948 Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb. 100/1 | Tell Bob Heinlein that, for my money, he has come up with something pretty darned swell, a classic short story. Forget the drips who wander vaguely around and save this Universe and that, and give us more wonderful off-trail short stories. |
| 1957 S. Moskowitz 1957 in Mag. Fantasy & Sci. Fiction Feb. 66/2 | At first such tales were referred to as OFF-TRAIL STORIES, but this was too all-inclusive and could also mean anything from a story told in the second person to a western yarn with a Christmas setting. To solve the problem, Argosy created the term DIFFERENT STORIES. |