Julia said: > That's one I hadn't heard before. I have a book containing essays and > speeches of hers, and while the ansible was mentioned in one of them, > that anagram thing hadn't come up.
I think I may have first read it in Clute and Nicholl's excellent _Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_ but I've seen it quoted in other less memorable places since. However, a quick google finds http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Ansible which says "Although some have claimed that the word was an intentional anagram of `lesbian', someone who spoke to LeGuin reported that she derived it from `answerable'." Ansible is also, of course, a famous fanzine edited by David Langford: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/ Rich GCU Random Disconnected Factoids
