Forgotten letter to PLAYBOY appears unexpectedly

A more prosaic example occurred when I was a senior in Prof Quick’s Modern Grammar course at Arizona State University in the spring of 1972. For an oral presentation to the class, I decided on rude expletives. At the time, most dictionaries did not include entries for so-called “four-letter words.” Early in the semester in preparation, I wrote to Henry Bosley Woolf, then the editor-in-chief of Webster’s Dictionary, requesting the etymology of “fuck.” He personally wrote back – the letter alone impressed my professor – giving me the principal information I lacked. A few years later, after listening to a friend tell me that Playboy had an item on the origin of “fuck’ as an acronym of “for unlawful carnal knowledge” placed on stocks for public humiliation of fornicators, I related my deeper knowledge; he suggested that I write to Playboy, so I did. Hearing nothing back from the magazine, I forgot about the letter I’d written until months later in December while teaching in a high school in Phoenix one of my male students entered class by announcing: “Mr Ivers, your letter’s in Playboy!”