“He was always talkin' about leavin' and gettin' up; he was just a jokeful guy. …”

The beaming smile of David Brooks, proudly wearing his yellow Euro 2020 jersey and a bucket hat, instantly raised the spirits of those on the pitch who spotted the 25-year-old's frantic waving.

Improve your golf swing by taking your mate to the driving range. If you're good, you can show off and give her some tips. If you stink, play it for laughs.

The gravamen of this essay is that these signifiers (the jargon of SF [science fiction]) function not merely as a set of isolated signs but as descriptions of a stock set of prototype worlds which they logically and conventionally imply, and which permit writers to specify mainly what (if anything) is unique about their world vision rather than what is shared with the rest of SF.