Sometimes known as the little typo that made good. Walt Willis made it and Lee Hoffman elevated it to fannish fame. Walt and LeeH were initially engaged in a correspondence which was fast and furious, long letters supplemented by shorter ones that passed each other in the mail, and in turn were added to by postcards. Then, when there hadn't been any mail from LeeH in a while, Walt dashed off a postscript to one of his letters that asked, "What, no poctsarcds?" LeeH replied that, alas, there were no poctsarcds to be had in her area – not even pitcuer poctsarcds. And from that time onward, at least for a few years, no one in fandom ever used a postcard again. Willis, tickled, used his press to run off some poctsarcds, so labeled. He also supplied the definition: While postcards have the space for the message printed on one side and the space for the address on the other, with poctsarcds it's done precisely the other way around.
Contributors: Dr. Gafia
| from Fancyclopedia 2 |
| An Irish crittur very like a postcard, except that where you write on one side of a postcard and address the other, you address one side of a poctsarcd and write on the other. It originated as a typo (in a letter from Leeh to Walt Willis), like other such useful expressions as silp and filk song. There are variants like pitcuer poctsarcds, too. |
