Forum: Lost Stories

I remember reading a story decades ago in which the basic rule of what is permitted was reversed. I am accustomed to being permitted to do anything that is not prohibited. In this story, people could do nothing unless invited.
The example I remember from the story was that there were no longer signs prohibiting you from walking on the grass. Instead, you were prohibited unless there were signs inviting you to walk on the grass.
I am unsure of the genre, but suspect it might have been sci-fi. Ring a bell for anybody? Looking for name of story and/or author.

It doesn't ring a bell, but this feels like the sort of thing that would have been a short story in the 1970s or earlier. Heinlein's future history series, Clarke, maybe even Sturgeon if you go a bit older.

If no one else thinks of it, I'd look for copies of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Volume 1 (1970) covered short stories published 1929-1964, volume 2 (1973) covered novellas 1895-1962. Some editions broke the second volume in to two books.

The story might not be there, but it's a good place to start when looking at classic SF stories.

The closest I can remember to this trope was in one of the Wizard in Rhyme novels by Christopher Stasheff. It was like a page and a half. A village guard stopped breathing(turned blue) because the hero told him the evil one had not explicitly given the guard permission to breath.

The best that I can remember, sorry.

Good Hunting, limab