Recency illusion: today's example

[Wilson Gray]

Jesse, Ben, you boys play nice, now.;-)

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain


On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Recency illusion: today's example
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 3:10 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
>>
>> I don't know how old something can be before we start considering it an
>> example of the Recency Illusion, but I noticed that in the Lingua Franca
>> blog at the CHE (contributors to which include Geoff Pullum and Allan
>> Metcalf), Lucy Ferriss writes about the "neologism" _relatable_ 'that
>> can be related to'. She mentions its newness ("I first noticed it about
>> three years ago"; "this neologism"; etc.), and in general doesn't like
>> it.
>>
>> It is, however, in OED, first attested in 1965 (I haven't tried to
>> antedate it further). Is 46 years still new enough that its recency is
>> not illusory? I'm not sure. I do think, though, that she could have
>> checked OED or asked a linguist before blogging about some new word she
>> happens to dislike.
>>
>>
> http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2011/08/26/im-relatable-youre-relatable/
>
> Or she could have Googled up the On Language reader response I wrote last year
> on the topic:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/magazine/15onlanguage.html
>
> --bgz
>
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org