John M. Ford

gravity well n.	1987 J. M. Ford How Much for Just the Planet? 36 They’re headed straight for the surface… Any deeper in the gravity well and the tractors won’t be reliable.
ion gun n.	1979 J. M. Ford Stone Crucible in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Aug. 62 Ye canna shoot me with an ion-gun.
space lane n.	1980 J. M. Ford On Playing Rôles: Third Look in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 51 If they players would rather explore one world in detail than flit among a hundred, build one without a starport, far off the space lanes.
superheroine n.	1979 J. M. Ford Mandalay in Asimov’s Science Fiction Oct. 45 At the head of the column stood a woman in black, a superheroine who kept some of her powers, Charlie Brunner. (Charlene? Charlotte? Maybe before the Fracture. But here, Charlie.)
Tau Cetan n.	1979 J. M. Ford Adventure of Solitary Engineer in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Sept. 118 ‘Watson, you see, but you do not—oh, forget it. Indeed it is a bottle, Watson; a bottle that once held Chateau Ganymede ’86, fermented from subsurface fungi on Jupiter’s moon, a vile concoction. I keep mine in a radioactive-ash-scuttle. There is your murderer.’ ‘You mean Bruce Dee was drunk.’ ‘As the proverbial Tau Cetan, Watson.’