Sturgeon's Law is the name given to two different adages derived from quotes by American science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, one of which is also known as Sturgeon's Revelation.
The first is: "Nothing is always absolutely so".
The second, and more famous, of these adages is: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." (The last word is typically misquoted as "crap".)
Sturgeon himself commented that it was originally the first of these that was known as "Sturgeon's Law"; the second adage was originally known as "Sturgeon's Revelation", formulated as such in his book review column for Venture.[1] However, almost all modern uses of the term "Sturgeon's Law" actually refer to the second, including the definition currently listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Both formulations of Sturgeon's Law are referenced in Theodore Sturgeon's 1972 interview with David G. Hartwell.[2]
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“Nothing is always absolutely so”
This was first stated in the story “The Claustrophile” in a 1956 issue of Galaxy.[3]
“Ninety percent of everything is crud”
The first written reference to this appears in the March 1958 issue of Venture, where Sturgeon wrote: “I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud”. [1] Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. are crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms do.
According to Philip Klass (William Tenn), Sturgeon made this remark in about 1951, at a talk at NYU at which Tenn was present. [4]. The term was subsequently popularized at a session of the World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia, held over the Labor Day weekend of 1953.[5][6]
This formulation of Sturgeon’s Law may be regarded as an instance of the Pareto principle.
Mike Weber reports: "...it was at Emory University, many years ago, that I heard Robert Bloch, in response to something that David Gerrold said, propound Bloch's Corollary to Sturgeon's Revelation: 'And your agent gets the other ten percent.' "[7]
See also
References
- ^ a b Venture 66/2 March 1958
- ^ The New York Review of Science Fiction #7 March 1989; #8 April 1989
- ^ “The Claustrophile”, Galaxy August 1956
- ^ SF Citations for OED
- ^ James Gunn, “Addendum: Sturgeon's Law”
- ^ "Sturgeon's Law". http://www.oed.com. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
- ^ [1]
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